ELR-News

May 2004

Newsletter of ELR Software Pty Ltd

ABN 67 090 738 702
http://www.elr.com.au
news@elr.com.au

ELR Software produces a range of computer programs designed by speech pathologists for speech, language & literacy intervention. Our programs may be used interactively within therapy sessions, to increase efficiency in service delivery, and to improve access to the Internet for people with special needs. We are also available as consultants to clinicians and research projects in the fields of literacy and accessibility issues associated with the Internet.

The aim of this newsletter is to inform you of developments and changes to our major products eLr (Extra Language Resources), Rude Readers, Word Meanings and EIA (Enhancing Internet Access). We welcome the opportunity for feedback and questions, and will be pleased to consider including reader contributions and announcements.

This Newsletter (and previous editions) is available online at www.elr.com.au/news and an email version is sent monthly to members of our mailing list (See Subscribing/Unsubscribing).

In this issue -

  1. New eLr Materials
  2. Party Dog - Featured Rude Reader
  3. Rude Readers Library- A free program
  4. How do I Update eLr-Offline?
  5. Free Downloads
  6. ELR 2004 Calendar

  1. New eLr Materials

    20 new tasks have been added to Syntactic Processing in the section Single Clause Active Sentences - Subject+Verb - Present tense. These are the first of the long awaited picture based tasks in this section. To date we have had only text based models in Syntactic Processing, and a number of clinicians have given us suggestions about including models which provide more context, eg with pictures. So we're very pleased that we can start including picture based models in this section.

    The tasks use a new model called SceneSentence Matcher. In this model a scene is displayed on the screen with 2 - 5 sentences under the scene. The client reads each sentence and selects the sentence which matches the meaning displayed in the scene. Immediate feedback is provided for correct choices by red highlighting. The task name alerts you to different levels of difficulty, with a choice of 2 sentences (field 2) being easier than a choice of 5 (field 5). It also enables you to select activities which target specific goals. For example, tasks may focus on the verb or the subject. The client may be provided with repeated practice by using the "Shuffle" button, which shuffles and re-presents the sentences.

  2. Party Dog - Featured Rude Reader

    Dog lovers will love this Rude Reader from Volume 2. The dog is naughty - just take your eye of the mongrel and it's scoffing the party food! Party Dog combines pairs of nouns in semantically expected and unexpected ways. The XcX LARSP IV phrase structure gets a workout. The rude dog eats all the party food "My dog ate fish and chips.". The order is reversed when the dog chucks up the food "chips and fish", and then is scrambled after the dog rolls in the mess "fish and jelly". Finally the child can clean-up with a fill-the-gap page "fish and ?". Party Dog is for children who need to build automatic associations of nouns. The vocabulary is small except for the large number of food nouns. Party Dog, and especially Anna's illustrations, will make you laugh.

  3. Rude Readers Library - A free program

    The "Rude Readers Library" is a small program in the same style as each Rude Reader, which is basically a single "Table of Contents" for all published volumes (1-5). It contains brief descriptions and the full Speech Pathology Targets for each Reader. There is also a cross-referenced listing of Speech Pathology Targets which allows direct opening of a story(ies) according to targets.

    If you already have some Rude Readers this program provides a convenient "front-end" retrieval mechanism, or you can just use it to peruse what's available in all (now 25) Readers. Download the Library from www.elr.com.au/downloads and place it in the same directory as currently installed volumes (NB: this program can only open stories for installed volumes, but will display information for all current volumes).

  4. How do I Update eLr-Offline?

    We add new materials to eLr every month (1,269 new tasks since this time last year for example). The website will always have the most current data, but we also create and make available a new edition of the eLr-Offline every month. New and re-subscribing subscribers receive this current CD version as a routine part of the subscription mechanism, and all subscribers will also receive a current, "Update CD" each 6-months of an ongoing subscription.

    Anyone can at any time download the most current version of eLr-Offline from www.elr.com.au/downloads and install it in the usual manner. If there is already a registered version installed on your computer (as installed from the CD), the new one will (should!) overwrite the existing version and retain the Registered User access. If the version on your computer has already "expired", or if you don't have a registered version, the program will behave in the "Unregistered" mode.

    We've had a few report of "problems" from Registered Users installing their 6-month update, or attempting to install a downloaded "Update". It seems that the newly installed program sometimes behaves in an unregistered mode, especially on Windows-XP systems with multiple Windows users, probably due to multiple separate installations of eLr-Offline. In such cases, the best solution is to first uninstall eLr, then re-install from your latest registered CD, then if required, install the downloaded update. If this fails to fix the problem, follow the un-installation with a file-search and delete on your hard disk of any files called "elr-o.exe" or "offline.key". Check with your IT support staff if unsure how to do this, or contact us for further details, or if you've had ongoing problems of this nature.

  5. Free Downloads

    ELR has a number of free or evaluation files available for downloading directly from our website. Please see www.elr.com.au/downloads.htm for specific details. For other supporting materials and documents available for free download, please see www.elr.com.au/support.htm.


     
  6. ELR 2004 Calendar



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Copyright ©2004 ELR Software Pty Ltd

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