Using the LAM (Language Activity Monitoring)
As a clinician or teacher you can use the LAM capabilities in your device to analyze your clients' language activities. This can be helpful for clinical intervention, outcomes measurement and research.
The following instructions are for use with a USB flash drive or Secure Digital card.
If you need to connect to a computer with a serial cable, download instructions from the following web site:
http://www.aacinstitute.org/Resources/ProductsandServices/LAMterm/intro.html
Turning Data Logging ON:
1. First go to your toolbox and enter the Clock Menu. .
Enter the current year, month, date and the correct time.
2. Now enter the REVIEW VOCABULARY MENU
3. Turn Data Loggin ON.
Your device will now record all language activity data. You can tell if there is data to be analyzed by looking at the Clear Data Log key. If there is a number displayed on the key, (e.g., 134 Bytes, or 400 Bytes, etc.) then there is data available to be analyzed. If there is no number on the key, you will have to turn Data Logging On and have the client generate some data.
You will save the language data to your USB drive or the SD card. You can then download the Data Log file from the USB drive or SD card onto your computer and save it as a word processing document.
Once you have accumulated some language data, you need to save it to your USB drive
1. Make sure you have the USB drive plugged into the correct connector on your communication aid.
2. Open the REVIEW VOCABULARY MENU.
3. Select Save Data Log.
4. When the log is saved, remove the USB device from your device.
5. Follow the directions that came with your USB device to transfer the Data Log to your computer.
7. Select Clear Data Log in the REVIEW VOCABULARY MENU.
This erases the data you just saved. If you want to accumulate more data, make sure Data Logging is On.
IMPORTANT NOTE: When saving to a USB drive, we recommend that you save the file and immediately transfer it to the computer where you can rename it. LAM files are all named DATA.LOG when saving to the USB drive, so files will be continually erased and replaced if you do not rename them.
An Example of a Data Log
### CAUTION ###
The following data represents personal communication.
Please respect privacy accordingly.
Language Activity Monitor Springboard LAM-2 Version 2.00 Prentke Romich Company
*[YY-MM-DD=05-06-07]*
09:47:15 SEM "like "
09:47:22 SEM "read "
09:47:24 SEM "put "
09:47:28 SEM "please "
09:47:39 SEM "I "
09:47:41 SEM "eat "
09:47:48 SEM "I "
09:47:49 SEM "feel "
09:47:58 ACT "happy "
09:48:15 SEM "you "
09:48:17 SEM "feel "
09:48:18 ACT "happy "
09:48:22 SEM "I "
09:48:23 SEM "want "
09:48:24 SEM "drink "
09:48:27 ACT "water "
09:48:44 SEM "you "
09:48:45 SEM "go "
09:48:47 ACT "outside. "
09:49:05 SEM "my "
09:49:07 SEM " "
09:49:16 PAG "Maria "
An Example of CTL Information
01:52:01 CTL "Switch User Area from Unity 45 Full to Unity
84 Single Hit"
01:52:14 CTL "Switch User Area from Unity 84 Single Hit to
About the LAM Data
When you look at the Data Log, the first thing you see is the year, month and date of this particular log. The next item you notice is the Time Stamp. Time is presented in a 24- hour format.
Following the time Stamp is the SOURCE of language event. Source codes are in capital letters. The following source codes are currently valid:
ACT (Activity Row)
CTL (Control “ this supplies information on non-language key
activations the client makes.)
PAG (Page)
SEM (Semantic Compaction “ Minspeak® and Unity®)
SPE (Spelling)
WPR (Word Prediction)
DWP (Derivative from Word Prediction).
Any characters spaced more than 0.2 seconds apart are considered as separate language events. In the example at the top of the facing page you can see that the device user formed sentences and used Pages and Activities. In the second example, the user changed overlays. These were not language events, so you see the CTL source code, but from them you can see that the user knows how to change overlays.
More information about LAM data and LAM tools is available on the Web at www.aacinstitute.org
.
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