Recently I got a new cell phone and it got me thinking. Where would we be without text messaging or email?  By “we” I mean the people that have a speech impairment or the hearing impaired. I do the majority of my communication with my friends and family through text and emails. If you were to ask me, I would say that text messaging is the greatest thing ever invented. I remember about 10 years ago when a cell phone was just for making phone calls. Today you can send emails, text messages and surf the web on your phone. If I am traveling, l can get the directions on the GPS and find the location I am looking for or restaurants and points of interest along the way.  I also can listen to music or watch full episodes of my favorite television shows.

Prior to having a cell phone I would either use instant messaging on Google talk and Facebook to communicate with family and friends. This was alright but I had to be on a computer or in range of Wi-Fi.  I usually had to be at home to do this. This could prove to be frustrating. Ever since I have gotten my cell phone, I don’t use the computer half as much as I used to. Between my cell phone and my DynaVox V, I have all of the communication bases covered.

When I got my cell phone I made sure that I was able to do unlimited texting otherwise the texting could get to be very expensive.  Now I am able to send texts and receive them anytime and anywhere as long as I have my cell phone with me. The DynaVox V, the Vmax and the Xpress all have a feature on them which allows you to send and receive text messages right on the device using Bluetooth. This is a great thing for those who don’t have the dexterity to work to buttons on the cell phone. Although I don’t use this feature, it’s nice to know that it’s on there.

The beauty of technology is that improvements are always being made. Advances in methods of communication for the speech impaired are being made every day. I welcome these changes and I am thankful that the quality of my life as a speech-impaired person is constantly improving. The research and development teams who work for DynaVox-Mayer Johnson are right on top of these improvements and I can’t wait to see what comes next for communicating with augmentative assistive communication devices.