In So Many Words

We were so blessed this Christmas by my wonderful brother and sister-in-law, who sent us our very own Apple iPad. I have spent a bit of time yesterday and today playing around with it and mentioned that I am very interested to see what is out there that would be useful and fun for Michael.

I have only downloaded a couple of “autism-related” apps so far, but I thought I would share with you what we have found. These are free apps, as I am holding off on purchasing any until I do some more research.

Autism XPress

This simple but fun app is from Autism Spectrum Australia and is designed to “encourage people with autism to recognize and express their emotions.”

When you first open it, there is a screen with a button that says “Play Game.” This seems a bit misleading and unnecessary, since all there is to it is to tap the emotion you want to see and then watch the animation and sounds that play.

I also am not sure I would have classified things like “hungry” and “gassy” as an emotion, but as they are valid answers to the question, “How are you feeling?”, I’m not going to argue the point.

Either way, it is very cute and Michael likes it.

Model Me Going Places 2

This app from Model Me Kids has six different social stories about what happens when you go to different places, including the hairdresser, the mall, the doctor, the playground, the grocery store and a restaurant.

They include both written and spoken text with photos and can be played as a slideshow or manually advanced by the user.

One thing I like about this one is they have a version designed specifically for the iPad. Some apps I have found seem to be made for the iPhone/iTouch and show up smaller on the iPad. There is a way to enlarge them, but the clarity isn’t as good.

Well, that’s all I have to share with you for the moment. I’m sure there will be much more as the days go on! Please feel free to share your suggestions with me.

So I am sitting here on Christmas night, writing my first blog post on our new iPad. My brother and his wife gave it to us for Christmas, so we are looking for any suggestions on the best apps for Michael. He doesn’t really need ones for communicating since he is verbal, but anything related to schedules, social skills and pragmatics is worth us looking into, I think.

Just from what I have seen so far, this is an amazing machine, although I think I am going to use my birthday money for a case with a keyboard. Typing a full length blog post would be a bit of a challenge for me from what I can tell.

I hope you all are having a wonderful Christmas, if you are celebrating. Otherwise, have a wonderful Saturday!

I learned so much at the autism conference last week.  I am still plowing through all my notes and handouts, but I did share what I thought was an amazing use of technology in this week’s Try This Tuesday post at 5 Minutes for Special Needs.

By the way, I am noticing that, as of this writing, Haloscan seems to be down, so I am not sure if you can leave any comments on my blog right now.  Hopefully, this will be a short-lived problem. (One more reason to move to WordPress, huh?)

My son has always loved watching videos, so I started looking for ways to use them as teaching tools. Read more about it in this week’s Try This Tuesday post at 5 Minutes for Special Needs.