Autism

13 Apps For Kids With Special Needs

August 6, 2019 By Tim Phelan

My son was diagnosed with autism just over 18 years ago. We were not alone. Today, nearly 1 in 59 families are affected by autism. We struggled to find the best tools to help him develop necessary life skills. From practical to educational, technology has come a long way for special needs children on the spectrum and their families. Here are 13 apps for special needs to support your child and help you overcome some of the day-to-day challenges.

Communication Tools:

LetMeTalk (AppNotize): If your loved one is nonverbal due to autism, Asperger’s, aphasia, speech apraxia, cerebral palsy, ALS, or down syndrome, the LetMeTalk app turns any Android phone into an Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) device. Users can select from more than 9,000 images to add to their personal vocabulary profile and create sentences. Several profiles can be maintained, with language support in more than a dozen languages, including English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Chinese. (Cost: Free)
ProLoQuo2Go (Assistive Ware): This AAC application comes with a hefty price-tag, but users say it’s worth it, as an effective and one-of-a-kind communication tool between students, teachers, and parents. The app works by choosing a username and communication level ranging from all customized, single word communication, or sentence building. The six-by-six grid is easily customizable to suit your child’s needs and preferences. (Cost: $250)

Scheduling & Productivity Tools:

ToDo Visual Schedule (Enuma, Inc.): This Apple Watch compatible scheduler helps those with autism begin to understand responsibility with a visual guide to the day’s agenda. Unique event icons on a vertical timeline, along with a checklist breakdown of steps within each icon, help children understand what they should be doing in the moment, with notice about what’s coming next. (Cost: $12.99)
ChoiceWorks (Bee Visual): Help children with: scheduling, waiting, and feelings. Kids can devise and stick to a timed routine, build patience by passing the time with an activity, and consider options when feeling upset. Customization options let you upload photos and audio for a more personalized experience. (Cost: $6.99)
DayCape (Daimonic Creations AB): This free scheduling app is geared toward Kindergarten through Fifth Grade, with personal or preset images for each daily activity. Notifications can be set to alert children to upcoming activities. The app aids with attentiveness, communication, hygiene, responsibility, and problem-solving. (Cost: Free)
Habitica (HabitRPG Inc.): Over 3 million users can’t be wrong, can they? HabitRPG gamifies life by offering incentives for doing chores, completing personal hygiene or fitness activities, and accomplishing self-set goals for school or work. Role players defeat “monsters” and “level up” their avatars with sweet gear and random prizes when they achieve their daily tasks. A collaborative social aspect lets users interact with and motivate one another. (Cost: Free, with in-app purchasing)

Problem-Solving Tools:

Birdhouse (Birdhouse LLC): Friendship Circle rated Birdhouse one of the “Top 10 Special Needs Apps” for caregivers. Thousands of parents use the app to organize notes regarding behavior, nutrition, health, schedules, sleep cycles, medications, and progress in therapy. Identifying triggers and patterns is easier than ever, with shareable results to keep spouses and medical staff in-the-loop. (Cost: Free)
Question Builder (Mobile Education Store Inc.): Question Builder is geared toward kids ages 4-12 who are learning to identify the “who, what, where, why, when, and how” in a given situation. Caregivers can choose from three different levels that give kids three to five different choices to answer questions based on inferencing and comprehension. (Cost: $5.99)

Reading Tools:

Voice Dream Reader (Voice Dream LLC): Reinforce reading training by importing books, web pages, PDFs, power points, word docs, and Dropbox documents for your child to read aloud. The built-in dictionary aids with comprehension, while a translation feature helps those learning new languages. Sync books with Apple Watch to combine reading with physical exercise. Customization options let the user select a voice, font, and pace. Students can read along with highlighted text or lock the screen and listen. (Cost: $9.99, with in-app purchasing)
The Monster At The End of This Book (Sesame Street): Reading has never been so fun and downright hilarious! Narrated by Grover, one of Sesame Street’s most lovable monsters, this read-along book contains visual cues to relay different emotions and comes with questions that parents can ask while reading to ensure comprehension. Grover begs readers NOT to turn the page, as he fears “the monster at the end of the book,” but kids can’t resist but slash every rope and smash through every wall to overcome the muppet’s best defenses and force him to face the inevitable. (Cost: $4.99 or free on Kindle FreeTime)

Skill-Building Tools:

Bugs and Buttons (Little Bit Studio): Fun and whimsical, Bugs and Buttons improves motor skills like tapping, pinching, dragging, and tilting, while focusing on activities involving counting, critical thinking, pattern recognition, memory, hand-eye coordination, and sorting. Among the 18 activities, kids can play tic-tac-toe with a dragonfly or build beautiful patterns out of buttons and yarn. Unlike many lower-priced apps, this one thankfully does not include third-party advertising or in-app purchases. (Cost: $2.99)
Dexteria (BinaryLabs Inc.): Improve motor skills, handwriting, coordination, and focus with short, engaging activities. This app is used by occupational therapists for special needs children and adults recovering from stroke, and is supported by Huntington University research. (Cost: $5.99, with in-app purchasing)
Toca Boca (Toca Boca AB): Through an interactive and imaginative game, children role play storekeeper and customer, while learning about making purchase choices, cooperating, counting with money, negotiating, turn-taking, following directions, and managing resources. The kid-friendly interface is guided by cute animations at your child’s pace, with no intrusive third-party advertising, in-app purchases, or stressful rules. (Cost: $0.99)

Screen time is not the enemy. When apps are selected with care and used collaboratively, they can be empowering and bring a household together. For us, technology has been a game-changer that allowed us a new channel to connect with our son. Like every kid these days, he of course knows the technology better than we could ever hope (I think he reprogrammed the clock on my VCR!!!).

Autistic Perspectives – Photo Shoot

January 7, 2019 By Tim Phelan

I love technology. As a father of an autistic young man, I keep up as best I can with the latest developments in Autism assistance and treatments, particularly those where technology can drive better diagnosis, assistance, or any type of help. Autism is a nebulous diagnosis that may include one or more of hundreds of demonstrated behaviors. Understanding the nature and what activities or environments that enrich and enable is mostly one of trial and error. I read and research. Every now and again I come up with an off-the-wall idea of my own to try…of course they involve technology! One idea I came up with provided interesting results. Of course, there is nothing at all scientific about this. However, because I know my son, yet I feel like it imparted some insights that I found enlightening.

Together, my son and I spend a few sessions teaching him how to take pictures with my Nikon D750 (an advanced camera). I made sure that we kept each time short so to not lose his attention or to make it less fun. He loved it. Once he felt comfortable, I sent him outside—to wherever he wanted to go—to take as many pictures as he wanted and of whatever he wanted. Off he went without me or his brothers. Alone to capture whatever interested him. He came back proud and asking for me to bring them up on the computer at least 200 times (it was Christmas and there were many things to attend to). Once I had time, I reviewed and printed out the clear pictures he took (many duplicates…more to come on that). Next, I sat down with him, excited and making it fun, and asked him to describe how each made him feel and to name each picture. I did have to explain the difference between the two many times and be encouraging. Here are the results:

Firstly, I was amazed by the quality of the pictures and how well he quickly shared his feelings and titles. Secondly, I gained insight into how he thinks from a broad perspective, some beckoning further questions:

All the pictures he took were of things he had a positive emotion towards – oh to see the world through that lens
He took 3-5 exact pictures of each – was he unsure, wanted to make sure he took the picture, or was it for some type of emphasis?
None of the descriptions included a possessive pronoun, only a name or literal description even though many contained subjects that normally would such as “my Christmas Tree”, “my dog”, etc. – I will address momentarily

With those observations alone, this was a great experience for both of us. He was proud of his work. I felt just a little more connected and hopefully better equipped to be a better parent to him. A couple of more detailed observations that I made:

Why “Fire” as the title on the first picture? While it is a broad landscape of a house and yard, the street lamp is the only one on the street with natural gas lights that are fire. I saw a scene, to him it was singly about the street lamp. Does he perceive details better as part of a larger context? I would have focused in tighter on the lamp (I did make sure that he knows how to zoom in/out with the camera). Furthermore, the picture “Love / For Quinn” contains many objects. Most interestingly, it also includes our other dog, Duke. Yet to him this was specific to just Quinn.
Revisiting the lack of possessive pronouns, he tended to use descriptors in their place. For instance, “Husky” instead of “my dog Duke” and “The House w Lights” instead of my house or home. Is this a unique gift, the ability to appreciate things for how they are now, and not the sentimentalism or reminiscing that shade our views of things.

I am thinking of ways to expand on this. Regardless of the insights—true or false—my son and I both enjoyed it. If anyone has suggestions, I graciously ask for them.

This is a positive experience and writing for me. I write it with a sense of duty and the heaviest of hearts for my dear friend Ralph. On Thanksgiving Day, his autistic angel Dante passed unexpectantly and unexplainably. I am blessed to have my son. I am confident Dante’s blessings continue from above. I am humbled, forlorn, and at the same time inspired by Ralph and his family’s resilience. I dedicate this writing of my uplifting experience with my son to Dante and Ralph…ALWAYS in my heart and mind…

3 Must-Have App Links for Children with Autism

February 7, 2016 By Chris Curley

I love technology. I also love my boys. My eldest son was diagnosed with Autism at 3.5, fifteen years ago last month. He is a joy and has a spark about him that I wish I could muster. Medical technology is advancing faster than ever. Soon we will have quantum computing power, which, in tandem with Big Data initiatives, means the opportunities for breakthroughs in cost of care, quality of care, and in the essential research to find cures, diagnoses, and effective treatments will advance exponentially.

As fast as those advances may come, however, autism is more common than ever. According to the Autism Society’s Facts and Statistics page, “Prevalence has increased by 6-15 percent each year from 2002 to 2010. (Based on biennial numbers from the CDC).” It is likely going to be some time before science can determine causes, treatments, and hopefully cures. There are a wide-ranging, wonderful technological resources available to assist children and adults with Autism and those that assist them. Here are the 3 resources that we’ve used the most and had success:

Autism Speaks

The most well-known Autism awareness and fundraising organization in the United States, Autism Speaks has an exhaustive wiki-style (list where anyone can contribute applications they have seen or used) list of apps for an array of devices that is enables you to filter and search. There are over 600 apps for pcs, macs, iOS, and Android. The beautiful part is that the list is constantly being updated.

Parenting.com

Parents Magazine’s online site has an excellent article about iPad apps for children with Autism by Jeana Lee Tahnk, titled 14 Expert-Recommended iPad Autism Apps. Tahnk makes a great point in her story that just as Autism is truly a spectrum, so too do the apps and appropriateness vary tremendously, “there is no silver bullet solution when it comes to apps, and each child will benefit from different apps for different reasons.”

Apple

Apart from their devices, Apple also sponsors the Apple Distinguished Educators Program which funds the development of innovative methods, technologies and applications for all children to learn. They also have a focus on Autism, Apps for Students With Autism Spectrum Disorders.

My son has an iPhone. Among other things, this means that I will always know the score to the game, any game, and at any time because he knows how to find them and knows all too well how to text! I laugh about that when I get updates on Canadian Football and NASCAR, but it is our thing—that place where we connect and all is right. I hope this is helpful to those parents that have children diagnosed with Autism. I will try to pull together all my notes over the years and assemble a list of things we tried and liked or left. Make it a great day!