Apple iPad
This guest post was written by Sue Drouin
The iPad/iPod technology is continuing to grow and become a part of our kid’s daily life.
Many families have purchased an iPad 
I have continued my search for the best apps to use in my work with children with special needs. Below is my current favorite list of apps that for my students diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. These apps have been chosen because they address the hallmark weakness of kids on the spectrum, are engaging, well attended to and include realistic images and sounds.
For teaching emotions: Voila Friends, ABA Emotions, Touch Emotion and MoodyMonster
For Sound Discrimination: Biggest Sounds HD, Noise Room, Things You Can Hear, Sounds and What Was That Noise?
To teach receptive vocabulary: WordSLaPs, Photo Touch apps and My First 1000 Words by Grasshopperapps.com, all of the Kindergarden.com apps, and SeeTouchLearn
For early literacy, site words and spelling skills: I Like Books and Little Spellers from Grasshopperapps.com, WordWizard, iWriteWords, Word Wagon, Winnie the Pooh puzzle book, There’s a Monster at the End of this Book, and I was So Mad,
In addition to these great apps, there are two fun apps that help kids talk about and experience two very difficult activities- getting a haircut and going to the doctor. Toca Hair Salon and Toca Doctor are so cute. The actions kids can perform and sound effects make the app truly multisensory. It is a great way to rehearse and prepare for those two challenging tasks.
If you need a kid safe way to search for images in your iPad
If you would like up to date information about iDevice technologies, please check out Sue’s blog at http://communik-9.blogspot.com/ Sue can be reached at Sue@CommuniK-9.com or 603.893.6018
Related posts:
8 Responses to Guest Post: Sue’s Favorite Autism Apps
Leave a Reply
Click on Each Topic
Thank you for your list of apps. I have purchased prologou2go for my son age 5 with autism and found it to be too much at this time but I hope he will get great use from it in the future. i need a place to start that is simpler.
Tim,
I’m glad that you found Sue’s list to be helpful! I saw the founders of Proloquo2Go at the Speech Pathology convention last year and was very impressed. I agree that it could be overwhelming for a 5 year old- good thing there are lots of other great apps out there and more coming every day.
Best of luck to you and your son!
Jena
these recs are awesome. I will share with families. Ever forward
Thanks for list of app’s. I will definitely check them out. I love an app called Conversation Builder. I use it with children with high-functioning autism who are learning social interaction and conversation skills. You can choose whether you want your student to initiate the conversation or the peer. It uses recorded voices of children and allows the student to record and play back their individual response or the entire conversation (4 or 8 exchanges). It’s the most realistic way I’ve found to work on conversation skills.
Thanks for the blog post. My company, Brain Parade, created See.Touch.Learn.™ for the iPad for children with Autism and other learning challenges and we have received very positive feedback from SLPs that use it. It is a free app, with add-ons priced from $0.99 so you only pay for what you need. Check it out at http://www.brainparade.com.
-Jim McClafferty, Founder
Tim,
I encourage you to check out SpeechTree which is designed for beginning AAC communicators and comes with lessons to learn the program. Will be released end of year.
http://www.speechtreeapp.com
http://www.facebook.com/speechtree
Thanks for the list of Apps. I have also had great success with the iWrite and Kindergarten.com apps, and significant challenges using Proloquo2go with my school-aged students. Two other favorites of ours (my students on the Spectrum and me) are Splingo, which teaches prepositions, morpho-syntax, and vocabulary, and has 4 levels, from 1 critical element to 4. The only challenge is that the cue voice has a British accent that takes some getting used to, but is not a challenge that cannot be overcome. Another favorite is the Preschool Lunch Box, which also teaches vocabulary, prepositions, phonemic awareness, etc. Both of these provide immediate feedback and intermittent reinforcement, which is the best schedule for my kids with ASD. Thanks again for the post!
[...] Sue's Favorite Autism Apps: http://independentclinician.com/autism-apps/ [...]