Autism & Technology - Autism Connect

Autism & Technology Apps that may help Organisation Timer+ (Free iTunes) Timer+ is a free app that allows you to set a visual time limit and countdown for activities as well as running in the background while you use other apps on your device. This can be particularly useful in a classroom setting to allow children to transition between activities.

First Then Visual Schedule HD (£6.99 iTunes) Another issue facing children with autism is that they require a clear, set schedule to help prevent them from acting out as a result of something unexpected. First Then Visual Schedule HD lets you create a pictogram-based schedule, with a timer for each event, that the child can then check off as each task is completed.

Autism Tracker Pro (£6.99 iTunes) Autism Tracker can be life changing for families with an autistic child. Explore Autism. Track what matters to your child and your family. Use the visual calendar and multi-item graphs to view and discuss patterns. Share with your team using email, iCloud, Dropbox, or Twitter (Twitter lets you set up closed groups). Fully customizable, but already set up to get you started: Mood items (Happiness, Stress, Activity Level, Hyperactivity, Weather), Behaviour items (Bolting, Self-injurious, Property Destruction, Tantrum), Food items (Casein, Lactose, Gluten, Colorants, Caffeine), Health items (Sleep, Bowel Movements, BM Texture).

Communication TouchChat HD(£99.99 – with wordpower £199.99) AAC is not one size fits all, and no two people with autism are the same or have precisely the same needs. However, one communication app that comes highly recommended is TouchChat. This app has combined the ease of use and functionality of dedicated Speech Generating Devices, making them more accessible by making them available on the iPad. TouchChat is highly flexible and comes pre-loaded with 4 vocabularies and, with the WordPower add-on, another seven are available. TouchChat can serve a young child with no literacy skills and severely impaired communication up to a fully literate adult who simply lacks the physical ability to speak.

Proloquo2Go (£149.99 iTunes) Proloquo2Go® is an award-winning Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) solution for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch for people who have difficulty speaking or cannot speak at all. Providing a “voice” to over 50,000 individuals around the world, Proloquo2Go enables people to talk using symbols or typed text in a natural-sounding voice that suits their age and character. Proloquo2Go can be adapted to suit the needs of a wide range of users with varying literacy levels. Featuring naturalsounding voices, speech can be generated by tapping buttons with symbols, selecting buttons using an adaptive switch or typing using the on-screen keyboard with word prediction. Proloquo2Go continues to revolutionize the world of mobile AAC, allowing individuals to communicate at home, in school, at work, in the community, anywhere, anytime.

AutisMate (£99.99 iTunes; LITE version - free) AutisMate offers an all-inclusive, comprehensive solution. The AutisMate app extends far beyond typical AAC iPad apps for autism by integrating communication with life skill learning. The technology is unique by allowing users to completely customize everything within the app. The technology enables the user to not only personalize the content, but also apply this content to relevant skills and life experiences they need to learn. AutisMate provides a progressive approach that helps the user transition from one developmental stage to the next. This includes transitioning from visual scenes to choices boards to an advanced grid-display and sentence building. The hybrid approach of grid-based and visual scene display technology offers just-in-time programming that allows you to capture your assistive technology needs in life as life is happening.

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Autism & Technology Apps that may help Grace App (£17.49) Grace App is a Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) used to give beginning to intermediate symbolic communicators a sense of independence as they learn to communicate with others in their environment. The best part of this app is in its simplicity, as well as time saving and organizational qualities. You can also add pictures from the internet without difficulty. Overall, this is an excellent app if you are looking for a beginning to intermediate communication system. It is simple to set up, use, and adjust to fit your child’s needs. It also is extremely portable as use on a Touch or iPhone is equally effective.

Fun Barn Door Four (Free iTunes) Barn Door Four (BD4) is a fun app designed to be user-friendly for children with developmetal disabilities and learning difficulties. BD4 was designed, tested and reviewed by Applied Behavior Analysts with extensive experience working with children in center and home-based environments for over 20 years. It has been field tested by parents, special education expert, teachers and therapists. Join Mac as he embarks on an adventure with Pepe the Pig, Lucy the Sheep and Ace the Rooster. BD4 allows Parents and Professionals to create a dynamic learning experience for each child. The App allows you Track and Manage Performance, Individualize Curriculum, Analyze Data and Share Progress with anyone in your support network, all from within the App! Barn Door Four incorporates a variety of Exercises, Data Systems and Analysis for teaching Imitation Skills, Fine Motor Skills, Visual Performance, Receptive Language, Intraverbals (a verbal response to the words of others), Play and Leisure Skills and Functional Routines.

Kid in Story ($6.99 iTunes) Kid in Story Book Maker makes it easy and fun to create visual stories to support learning, social modelling and early literacy with your child as the star character. You can write your own custom story or modify any of the templates provided. To personalize the stories, LocoMotive Labs’ unique Locolens™ image detection technology allows you to superimpose your child or student onto the template backgrounds – similar to “green screening.” The app will pluck your “kid” out of your picture and place him or her in the story. As the narrator, you can record your own voice or the child’s voice for each page. Once complete, the stories can be shared with others via email or Dropbox. “These custom digital favourite books make Leo so happy. He uses them to keep himself calm when we’re at medical appointments (there have been a lot of those lately). He can page through them at whatever pace he likes. And there’s no danger of him loving the digital books to pieces, which he has done on occasion with their board-and-paper versions.” – Squidalicious

Bugs and Buttons (£1.99 iTunes) This app is an extremely intuitive and fun series of games. Children with autism may face delays in development and but this app is extremely user-friendly with only visual prompts, rather than written or audio instructions. The games get more difficult as your child plays and improves which accounts for uneven development in skills, which is very common amongst children with autism. The games teach useful skills such as fine motor control, language use and understanding. The games are repetitive and the background music is soothing and pleasant. These games will help children to develop their confidence as well as having fun.

I Luv Drawing Santa. (Free iTunes) This is a series of apps that encourage children to draw. This develops fine motor skills as well as promoting creativity and self-expression. This is a good example of a fun app for all children which also has a specific function for children with autism.


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Autism & Technology Apps that may help “Owen, who has never shown any interest in art whatsoever, has used these apps because they break things down for him into simple geometric shapes that he can both understand and easily colour in. For children with fine motor challenges this is a huge confidence booster. Added bonus – these apps are fun for adults too!” – Small But Kinda Mighty

Life Skills ConversationBuilder ($7.99 iPhone/$13.99 iPad iTunes) This app presents images of scenarios and asks your child to start a conversation. A selection of possible statements is presented and the child must pick the most appropriate response. The options offered are not ridiculous ones and so the child will learn to discern appropriate responses in a nuanced and genuinely useful way. If they choose correctly the app praises them and then asks them to record their voice saying the appropriate phrase. If they choose incorrectly, the narrator gently asks them to try again. At the end of each exercise the app combines all the recorded responses with the other child’s and generates the entire conversation for the player to hear in real-time. “I’m not a teacher or speech pathologist or an expert in autism by any stretch of the imagination, but I do know my son and I know when the light goes on. So, you tell me...how do I put a rating on an app that provides my autistic son with an opportunity to practice his conversation skills in a manner he feels so comfortable with (alone and on the iPad) that he loves to do it?” – smartappsforkids.com

Stewie the Duck Learns to Swim (Free iTunes) Drowning is the number one cause of accidents for both autistic children and adults. Many people with autism are drawn to water and do not have a full appreciation of the dangers involved. This app teaches them about water and water safety. There is a water safety song which is a good way of helping children to learn.

DialSafe Pro (Free iTunes) Dialsafe Pro allows children to practice telephone skills and also to learn important phone numbers, including those for emergency services. The parent can also add three audio answers, so that when the child dials the number correctly, they hear who they called answer the phone! This is also helpful for role playing and learning appropriate conversations for on the phone. The app can support numbers from Australia, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. There is also a setting to change the appearance of the phone from “fun” to “real.”

Little Writer (Free iTunes) This app is helpful for teaching children how to improve their fine motor skills and handwriting as well as teaching them new words. Your child traces upper and lowercase letters, numbers from 1 to 9 and shapes and words. The app is fully customisable, you can hide any content that you think is too advanced for your child as well as adding your own words and pictures and recording your own voice on the app. You can also add pictures of friends, family and favourite items so your child can practice writing their names.


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