Best Apps for Autistic Kids
Thank you to Dad developer Kyle Tomson of Mobile Education Store, for letting me repost his great article on apps for high functioning autistic children. They benefit greatly from the language aspects of these apps. Kyle has a daughter, Caitlin, who is very high functioning on the autism spectrum so this topic is very near and dear to his heart, so much so that he went and developed them himself!
Click here for the full post. The apps are listed below.
p.s. My husband gave me this link to a 60 Minutes segment on Apps for Austism. It was about how Steve Jobs changed the world significantly for those with special needs.
p.p.s Another post on Apps for Special Needs is here. All posts on Special Needs here.
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Sentence Builder was designed specifically for Caitlyn to teach her how to put together a grammatically correct sentence. I spent a tremendous amount of time on encouragement animations (jumping dogs/dancing cows – that sort of thing). They are what make the program fun for her to play, and what keep her engaged. Once she started playing, she made such dramatic improvement in her sentence formation that I decided to “throw it up” on iTunes. I have been shocked at the number of SLP’s, teachers and parents from around the world who have contacted me telling me how much they like the program and how much it has helped their students/children. It has been a truly humbling and unexpected experience.
Sentence Builder is $3.99 at iTunes. To examine it more closely, please click on icon.
My next two applications were inspired by Caitlyn’s needs as she grew. I made Question Builder because as she started to use language more, she would more often than not echo questions back to her teachers rather than answering the questions. As with Sentence Builder, within months of using Question Builder, this problem was completely arrested in the the classroom. Now in the 2nd grade, Caitlyn is expected to do more creative writing, which she really struggles with. My featured application this month, Story Builder, was designed to help her come up with her own creative ideas, rather than letting her pick the answer from a list. Story Builder was made to address the core of her language deficits. Already she has made great strides in her ability to build a creative narrative.
Hi,
I would like to draw attention to our new app, called iPicto, for iPhone, iPod Touch
and iPad.
This app is designed to guide people with a (mental) disability, with or without
dementia/alzheimer, asperger, autism and / or a disorder in communication.
This new app iPicto is also a very good tool in learning a way of communication,
for example speech difficulties.
I refer you for further information, visit the App Store.
See for it: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ipicto/id423225072?mt=8&ls=1
and
http://ipicto.applereports.com/iPicto/Welkom.html
Thank you for attention,
Sincerely,
Erwin van den Hout
The Netherlands
To Evd,
Thanks so much for the heads up on your app for people with special needs. It sounds like it is very helpful!
This is such a Great resource that you are providing and you give it away for free. It gives in depth information. Thanks for this valuable information.
Thanks Stacy!
Well, good information on your blog. This blog is really useful for everyone. I must appreciate your work here guys. Keep posting good blogs. Thanks
Great site,
Thanks so much Stacy. That means a lot to me!