Mandarin has more than 900 million native speakers. Until now, WordPower has supported bilingual AAC communicators for English, Spanish, and French. This presentation will explore a new bilingual option for the TouchChat app - WordPower60普通话 Mandarin.  The presenters will provide a concise overview of the WordPower guiding principles, and an in-depth overview of the new WordPower60 Mandarin vocabulary. 

WordPower60 Mandarin is a robust AAC vocabulary, designed to meet communication needs for a wide range of individuals, from children to adults.  Direct feedback from teachers and speech-language pathologists has greatly enhanced the development of all WordPower vocabularies, including this new vocabulary. 

Availability of bilingual AAC systems has become increasingly important as a means of supporting students who are being educated in English, but whose home or first language is something else. In developing this file, a partnership was established with Shirley Feng, a native Mandarin speaker and a bilingual speech-language pathologist.  Additionally, beta-testers were enlisted, consisting of native speakers, families, and AAC professionals in Singapore, China, as well as in the United States.  

Because Mandarin is not a Germanic language, there are several challenges to address. For example, the Chinese writing system consists of characters and symbols to represent meaning, rather than letters with phonetic sounds.   Word order can also be significantly different, and a completely unique class of words known as “classifiers” or “measurement words” was included. An additional 200 new SymbolStix symbols were added to appropriately represent items from the Chinese culture. 

Included within the vocabulary are manual communication boards, and a “cheat sheet” for the core page including Pīnyīn and the English translation.  Supports designed to empower families and education teams will be presented, such as:

• Access to basic core vocabulary within noun categories to facilitate modeling, and easy, natural sentence generation
• Ability to move automatically between English and Mandarin vocabularies with a single hit using the TouchChat PROFILE feature
• Direct access to categories via some high frequency verbs on the main page
• Verbs and adjectives programmed on pages as well as via a “Pīnyīn” arrangement
• iOS System keyboard using Chinese, Simplified options
• Inclusion of Emojis to facilitate engaging and fun writing/texting experiences
• The “Launch App” feature allowing one to open iOS Apps and paste text from the speech display bar into the App
• Common sentences and phrases with conversational support available on the SOCIAL pages
• Voice Assist commands for “Hey Siri”
• Inclusion of the “Lock Page” feature that allows one to keep a page open that would normally close automatically, thus allowing the user to learn or study the page without interruption
• Chinese children’s books to enhance development of literacy and use of core language

Join us for this informative and practical session to discover how WordPower60 Mandarin empowers individuals, families, and education teams to communicate with confidence!

Learner Outcomes

Participants will be able to…

• Describe similarities and differences in core spoken vocabulary for Mandarin and English systems.
• Demonstrate use of system keyboards using Chinese Simplified-Pīnyīn.
• Identify on board and online Mandarin supports.

Agenda

5 min - Introduction

5 min - A brief overview of Mandarin file development and WordPower history

5 min - Discover settings for success, on-board and online supports. Chinese symbols explained.

25 min - WordPower60 Basic and WordPower60 Mandarin as complementary files and use of profiles to navigate between. Delve into WordPower’s guiding principles while exploring file organization with vocabulary demonstration.

10 min - Keyboard options: WordPower60 Mandarin system keyboards

30 min - Vocabulary in action. Demonstration.

10 min - Questions/wrap up

Please note the following details regarding this course:

• You must register for this course using your own AACLJ account.
• All attendees will have the opportunity to download a Certificate of Attendance/Completion, depending on the class.
• ASHA CEU and certificate eligibility require complete live attendance.
• Certificates will be available to participants with verified attendance within a 2-week processing period.

If this is an online training:

• Please check that your Zoom software is up to date prior to the course start time.
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Click here for instructor bio and disclosures

Session Dates:

• Online with Nancy Inman, Lisa Timm, and Shirley Feng
  April 23, 2025 : 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm EDT