How do I Modify my Scan Pattern in Vantage Lite?
Modify Scan Pattern is an option that allows you to create your own scan pattern based on user-definable blocks. This means you can scan any keys in any order, and even have different patterns for individual pages. You can Modify your Scan Pattern by going to the Access Method Menu, setting your device to one of the switch modes, then selecting Modify Scan Pattern. The key is also available in the Modify Pages menu
Let’s look in detail at one example. In this case, we’ll use the simple 1 Switch Auto Scan Row/Column.
The top left quarter of the page shows the Preview screen.
When you hit the button marked Preview at the bottom left, you’ll see a real-time preview of what the current scan looks like. See how the Preview screen shows the actual Core/page you are using. If you change to a different overlay or page, that’s what you see. Other devices simply show a blank, generic overlay.
Select the STOP key when you are familiar with the scanning sequence.
You can also use the UP and DOWN ARROW keys to step scan through the current scan pattern.
The Use Default Pattern option allows you to set all Pages and your CORE to the same pattern. You can use the pre-set default scan or you can modify the default scan to your own liking in the Core Vocabulary and then use it everywhere.
Make New Scan Pattern
When you select this key, you see the full-screen overlay you are planning to scan. Notice the message in the text display area asking you to select the top left location for this block. This means you will need to select the upper left corner of the first block you would like to scan. To complete the block, you must select the bottom right location for that block.
If you select Row 2 Column 1 followed by Row 6 Column 2, a box appears around all the pronoun keys.
Now select Row 2 Column 4 and Row 2 Column 9, and all the Closed Class words are highlighted.
You can continue to outline blocks of keys until you have selected ALL the keys you want to scan through.
When you are finished, simply select the Text Display Area on your display to go back to the scan modification screen.
Select the Preview key to try out your new Scanning Pattern.
Copy Pattern From Another Page
Another way of setting up a scan pattern is to use the Copy Pattern From Another Page key. This lets you use a specific pattern over and over again, based on the pattern used from a pre-designed layout.
Scan Pattern Order
Another way to modify the scan pattern is to set the order in which the keys, text area, and word prediction window are scanned.
Select the order with the four toggle keys, Scan Keys, Scan Word Pred. List and Scan Text Area and Scan User Keys.
The settings are interdependent so if you change Scan Keys to FOURTH, the Scan User Keys setting would change to FIRST.
Note: Scan User Keys, when activated, means the unit will scan the User Defined keys on the top of the Vantage, such as Tools and the 1 - 6 keys.
In the default settings, the scan will highlight the Core and Activity keys first, stepping through each assigned block; then it highlights the word prediction window and, if activated, scans through the word list; next it highlights the text window, which speaks any text if selected. Last, it will scan the User Defined keys on the front of your device.
Add Scan Block(s)
One of the more powerful uses of customizable block scanning is with scenes. Because each scene is likely to contain different key elements in a variety of positions, you might want to scan each specific element rather than use a regular row/column approach.
For example, in the scene below of a farmyard, you can create a scan pattern that highlights individual items.
Scanning Block Within Blocks
One other feature of the customizable block scan is that you can also scan blocks within blocks. To illustrate, let’s take another look at our Farmyard scene.
“Barn,” “farmer’s wife,” and “house” are outlined. If you outline "sky” as follows:
You can see that the block also includes all of “barn” and “house” along with part of “farmer’s wife.” However, the scan will outline each in turn so when the barn alone is highlighted, you can say “barn,” but when the sky area is highlighted, you can say “sky.”
Treat Block As...
There is one more feature to point out and that is the option to treat a scannable block as either a block or a key. The difference is based on what exactly a “block” is. Technically, it is a group of keys that can be scanned as a whole but then scanned, key by key, within the block. So if you have defined a block of pronouns like this:
Your scan will highlight it as such, but when you hit your switch to select, the scan will operate as row/column, column/row, or linear within the block, depending on your scan setting.
Now, you can also use the following setting:
The default of BLOCK means that if you select the block, you can scan within it to specific keys. If you switch to SINGLE KEY, when you select the block, it will act as a large, single key and will do whatever is stored in the top-right location.