Eric Seneca's blog

Learn To Listen By Usemyears.com

Posted Sun, 06/06/2010 - 08:42 by Eric Seneca

Version 1.0 has been uploaded to the iTunes store. The Auditory-Verbal approach is a parent-oriented therapy system that seeks to teach deaf students, through the use of hearing aids or cochlear implants, the ability to understand spoken language in order to communicate through the spoken word. Once key factor in this therapy is the reestablishment of the parent as the primary teacher of speech and language. The AV approach is accomplished through structured lessons taught to the parents by the therapist. For hard-of-hearing children, one of the many activities that can facilitate listening to sounds are sound-object association activities also known as "learning to listen sounds". This program is designed to help children working on these sounds.

Update on software development for students

Posted Sat, 06/05/2010 - 23:38 by Eric Seneca

I received notification that Apple is reviewing the Learn2Listen application. I hope it wil be accepted and placed in the App store over the next few days. After thinking about it, I believe the next app that we may need to work on will be body parts. Additionally, I am working on an update for the Ling 6 application that will incorporate three different voice types, adult male, adult female and child.

Ling 6 Sound Application 1.1 has been released

Posted Thu, 06/03/2010 - 17:45 by Eric Seneca

I have taken the advise of some users and improved the sound quality on a the tones, especially the OOO sound. Apple has approved the new version and it is now in the App Store for your update. I will be working on other improvements over the next month.

Releasing version 1.1 of Ling 6 Sound App

Posted Thu, 05/27/2010 - 09:53 by Eric Seneca

After reviewing the response from people using the Ling 6 Sound App, I have updated the sounds associated with each button. Specifically, Landon seemed to muffle the OOO sound and my fear was that it was not clear. All of the sounds were recorded and amplified. The update has been submitted to Apple for review, I hope it will be released a week from now. I will start working on version 1.2 which will feature three different voices, Adult Male, Adult Female and child.

Learn to Listen Sounds

Posted Tue, 05/25/2010 - 22:52 by Eric Seneca


Learn To Listen
Click here to view in iTunes Store

The Auditory-Verbal approach is a parent-oriented therapy system that seeks to teach deaf students, through the use of hearing aids or cochlear implants, the ability to understand spoken language in order to communicate through the spoken word. Once key factor in this therapy is the reestablishment of the parent as the primary teacher of speech and language. The AV approach is accomplished through structured lessons taught to the parents by the therapist. For hard-of-hearing children, one of the many activities that can facilitate listening to sounds are sound-object association activities also known as "learning to listen sounds". This program is designed to help children working on these sounds.


Creative Commons License
Learn2Listen by Eric Seneca is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Feedback from App Store

Posted Fri, 05/21/2010 - 08:47 by Eric Seneca

The Ling 6 Sound Application has been a great success. There have been a small number of downloads with positive feedback. Most of the feedback makes a good deal of sense. One suggestion was to have child, male and female voice. I think this is a wonderful idea and I will begin work on making that improvement. I also received feedback suggesting a way to track sounds that were chosen wrong. Again, this idea is very good as well, but I am not sure how it could be done within the design of this app. The concept behind this app is to allow mom/dad/brother/sister to work with the implanted child. It was never designed for that type of functionality or to be used alone without supervision.

With that said, the user has a valid point. It would be nice to have a system that will assess the performance of the student. I believe it would be more prudent to develop another application in a "game" type format. There must be some careful design in this concept because there are a limited number of sounds and pictures in applications this small so you really do not want behavioral memorization to take the place of actual sound response. I will ponder this suggestion and thank both individuals for the constructive comments about the Ling 6 app. My only hope is that those who have downloaded this app will benefit from its use.

--Eric

Working on Learn to Listen sounds app

Posted Wed, 05/19/2010 - 06:52 by Eric Seneca

Now that the semester is complete, I have been researching the Learn to Listen sounds. I have developed a prototype app, but there is way to many pictures and sounds in it to be effective. I think it would be best to divide this one app into two or three. Jennifer suggest looking at it from a category perspective, I am will look at what she finds and keep you updated.

Also, I am conducting research on signing exact English to see what would be involved with helping those who need this path.

Landon's technology journey

Posted Sat, 05/15/2010 - 20:11 by Eric Seneca

Thanks to all for the kind words about Landon's iPhone application. I can tell you it was fun and frustrating experience to conceptualize and develop the application. I thought it would be neat to see how my little technologist has evolved along with his technology.

The first attempt was nothing more than a failure. Trying to get the bilaterals working with a Y connector into each ear, with you plugged into it with the parent microphone to see if there was sound was nothing less than a nightmare when working with a one year old. I was finally able to just get a normal YouTube video working to start teaching him about music, but was never able to get the equipment to work as I wanted. The first generation iPod presented its own set of challenges. The touch interface for a one year old was just too tempting. Also, I never felt I was giving him a real-world experience with that equipment. Here is our first major attempt at 1 1/2 years of age. Hot dog dance worked, but not well.

Based on the limitations of the CI's connectivity and the first generation iPod touch, I decided that the second attempt should be a web based, computer only approach. I developed The Sound Garden on the UseMyEars website. That work ok, but it was still not sufficient because a 2 year old does have problems with mouse manipulation. Yet another epic fail.

One day in Radio Shack, I go there or the Apple Store or Best Buy for lunch sometimes, I was looking at headphones when I ran across this handy gadget.

Ah finally, now we are getting somewhere, I was able to plug this into the generation 1 iPod and cut out all the wires for the CI. I access the UME website's Sound Garden and bamo, instant Ling 6 bliss. Except there was one more problem, you needed to have WiFi access for it to work. Another epic fail, but not so monumental.

Ok, so 9 months ago I was browsing the shelves of the Apple store and saw a book on Cocoa Touch. I knew about the SDK previously and attempted to write a few apps, but the iPhone was so new that documentation was sparse at best. Additionally, the growing pains for the App Store is well documented and I decided work on the app and not publish it for a while. Lots of reading, writing bad code, locking up my iPod touch, and running the program about a million times (you know the normal development process), I finally got a rock solid version of a highly mobile self-contained sound application; Ling 6 Sound App.

I am even more excited now that I see the iPod touch coming with internal speakers and the iPad version of the Ling 6 app is really nice for Landon. The sound on that device is superior to the iPhone and iPod touch. I hope that one day I can get him an iPad to keep up his "studies."

[Buzz's Journey]

Ling 6 App for the iPhone,iPod Touch,iPad

Posted Sat, 05/15/2010 - 09:05 by Eric Seneca

Ling 6 App for the iPhone,iPod Touch,iPad - Eric wrote an application for working on the Ling 6 for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad~~~~and it has been approved by Apple and is now available for purchase in the iTunes store. WAY TO GO ERIC!!!! We were at a point where Landon was tired of doing the typical Ling 6 test in the morning so Eric came up with the idea to do an application so Landon thinks he's playing now and loves doing the test. We can also change the volume on it so we can test his hearing at different levels. He loves to just play with the application during the day saying the sounds~~it helps me by keeping him busy in the grocery store. He's starting to show more independence with his hearing - such as coming to us when the batteries die and helping to change them - so this app will allow him when he's a little older to test his implants himself to make sure they are working properly.


You can see it at the iTunes store here

He's already got ideas for several more applications he is going to write for these devices. His next application is going to be one for teaching the learning to listen sounds. He also wants to figure out how to write one that will quiz the user--for example have it ask "what makes the aahhh sound" and then they will have to pick out the correct picture from a few choices.

[Buzz's Journey]

Learn to Listen Sounds

Posted Sat, 05/08/2010 - 20:31 by Eric Seneca

Landon has responded so well to the Ling 6 sound application, I am now developing the Learn to Listen sound application. His big brother is excited to have his voice recorded and put on an iPhone. That application will be coming soon.