Ellar Software

...was founded in 1990 when I ordered some speech therapy software. I tried it, then exclaimed, "I paid a hundred bucks for this??!?" Although I had never written commercial software - only software for my own use as a speech-language pathologist - I felt that I understood the needs of professionals like myself, and I certainly understood what was wrong with the software which I had bought. So, not having enough money to hire a programmer, and not knowing what was "doable" at the time, I bought some programming software and jumped in. Two years later, I had developed my first application. I am pleased to report to you that it didn't take long for someone to see the value of my software - two phone calls, actually. The entire product line has been published by one of the largest speech and language catlog companies ever since.

I have had an abiding interest in the use of technology in working with students since 1975. I've owned computers since before they had floppy disk drives - computers once used cassette recorders to store data! I've done speech and language therapy in schools, provided private assistance to students with learning disabilities and other special needs such as attention deficit disorder (ADD) under the guidance of a psychologist, worked extensively with students with dyslexia and students with auditory processing or visual memory problems to boost reading comprehension skills in my own private clinic for 10 years, and during school hours provided language therapy services to those with traumatic brain injury (TBI), autism and aphasia. I've also been director of a residential/day facilitiy for special needs students.

Software for speech language pathologists and teachers sometimes has its content written by a professional - but the user interface, features and overall design are not - because the teacher or speech pathologist is not a computer programmer and doesn't know what is hard or easy to create. They've had no experience beta testing software, don't understand compatibility issues and wouldn't have a clue how to provide technical support to a customer. Although I now have a software team to create the graphics and program applications, I personally supervise both content and design of the software throughout the production process. And I do speak the lingo, so the products are what I have envisioned when they're finished, not a series of compromises because of technical issues I didn't know or hadn't been informed about until the program was almost finished.

One other thing about my software - because I've worked in so many areas, I want it to be flexible. I want you to be able to use it with students in kindergarten and students in middle schools, even with adults. So I've designed all of my software to allow you to set the difficulty levels. The software is designed to "flex" with the abilities and limitations of the student. And I know how important accountability in education is nowadays - that's why you'll find session record keeping in all Ellar Software.

Finally, one last thing. I never got that hundred bucks back from my first purchase of bad software. But if you try our software and don't like it, I will trust you to take it off your computer and send it back for a full purchase price refund.
Don't take our word for it...try our software and see for yourself. If you don't like it, return it for a full purchase refund.

Larry R. Pickett
President
Ellar Software for Learning