iPad Apps helps autistic children to spread their wings

Today there is app for everything, for maths, science, history, music and many more. Can these apps be useful for children with special needs? Kids with special needs cannot use the traditional approaches in learning, specially kids with autism need extra help than the rest of these children. They find it bit hard to focus on the things you teach, and process the information that is targeted. For kids like this Apps can be a life saver.

There  is an app for every skill you want to impart. For example there are apps targeted:

   

• Improve Attention Span
• Communication
• Eye Contact
• Social Skills
• Motor co-ordination
• Language and literacy
• Time Management
• Emotional Skills and Self Care

There are many apps in the appstore that facilitate Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC ) which can be highly use for autistic kids who are non verbal or speech partially impaired. These apps use text to speech technology, where kids can type words, or drag and drop images to communication with others on their needs.

Here are some of the reasons why iPad apps are so attractive for the kid's with autism and why they simply love it.

• Visual Learning - Children with autism tend to learn more visually or by touch. In most cases they struggle with instructions given in the traditional school setting. Therefore, ipad provides an interactive educational environment to help them learn.
• Structured and Consistent - Autistic children prefer devices compared to humans mostly because they are structured and constant. The voice is constant phase is constant, and they like things to be orderly and the ipad waits, which is something most human educators lack.
• Promote independent learning and gives immediate feedback - Some apps which were build for ASD gives sensory re-enforcement to the child and when giving negative feedback, it chose to give it smoothly without any loud noises to distract the child.
• Diverse Therapeutic Resource - Technology evolves and expand rapidly, so every day you see new apps with lot of creativity. Kids will not get bored, and the apps they use will get updated time to time
• Cost Effective - Compared to other therapeutic resources ipad is inexpensive. For example Assistive Technology Devices such as Saltillo, Dynavox, Tobil cost much more than the iPad.
• Socially Desirable and Portable- Most of therapeutic devices can lead to bullying in school, for kids with special needs. But if you give a child with an iPad, this makes the child popular at school (because every other kid likes to use iPad).
• Apps can be easily customised - Most apps which were developed targetting autism can be customised, you can add your unique videos, images and voice to these apps. Specially the language and communication apps, so the child can learn from the things they see in their day to day life.

Here are some of the common iPad apps which target Communication, Social, Emotional and Linguistic Skills.

• Communication - Tap to talk, iComm, Look2Learn, voice4u, My Talk Tools, iCommunicate, Proloqu2go, Inner Voice.

• Social Skills - Model Me Going Places, Ubersense, TherAd, iMove (these apps will mostly do video self modelling social stories and give step by step  guidance for social stories such as brushing their teeth, going for a hair cut etc).

• Linguistic Skills - First Phrases, iLanguage/ Language Builder, Rainbow Sentences, Interactive Alphabet, Touch and Write.

• Emotional Skills - Smarty Pants.

Special Note for Educators, Teachers and Parents

Even though, there is a vast amount of apps available today, iPad is not a baby sitter, you should always be present when educating your child. The educational apps are their to help your child develop some cognitive processors or enhance their skills at reading, writing, spatial reasoning or just a way of communication. However, in order your child to grow, there should be an educator present when child is learning.. It can be a great tool and a resource for educational development but all things should come in moderation and also under supervision. It's actually quality of teaching and support that gives a positive out come, not just the device.

Introducing Leamo - To LEarn And MOre

Today I thought of introducing a cool cutting edge technology, which can help young minds to learn educate and have fun. Leamo, is an interactive learning platform which uses an iphone and bunch of flash cards and brings a magical environment to home/pre schools for kids under all ages.

Why not traditional learning ?

Most traditional education tools/applications uses the sit and learn approach, where educators have to talk and interact with kids while kids sit and listen. Most kids get soo bored with this traditional learning approach, and sometimes they get tired of the whole education system. Kids are more energetic than adults they need to run around poke things to nurish their curious minds. They cant just listen to you all the time and agree on what you say rather they like to experiment with new things and then learn how things work.

Why Leamo ? 

Kids like to play with toys, flash cards, play-dough and also interact with things without just listening and watching. They like to touch and feel things rather than look and listen. In the modern days kids are more attracted to digital screens, such as iphone, ipads, tablets and smartphones. Even though these ipad/ipones apps are very attractive for kids, there are major draw backs when it comes to kids education. I agree there are good educational applications provided by these gadgematics, however, it will not make your child develop the basic skills such as  creativity,  motor skills and hand-eye coordination ect. Most of these skills are develop when they interact with physical objects. So the solution is to mix the digital world with the physical world and give a hybrid educational platform for kids. So they wont get bored, or get distracted while learning and give a fulfilled learning experience.

This is the base of leamo, leamo provides a novel way of educating your child, using flashcards and digital surface. Where there are several education apps focusing mathematics, science and language skills along with history,arts music which will give them a balanced and rich education and develop both sides of their brain.

How Leamo Works?

Leamo runs on ipad, iphones and ipod (at the moment however, it will improve for android devices as well), all you need to do is connect your apple device to an LCD screen or a projector, and run the application. Leamo will come with bunch of flash cards and physical toys so the kids can interact with the digital world through the physical objects, by placing them in the correct place at the correct time. Leamo will guide you with all the kid's activities, parental supervision is not needed, kids can learn independently at their own space. Leamo will provide bunch of educational applications such as number games, language, fun with arts and music and story telling which will take the kids to a magical world where learning becomes addictive and fun. This is the best educational tool for energetic kids where they can run around, talk with it and make imagination come to reality.

Educating young minds ....

From my experience as a technology for education enthusiastic and a technology provider for kids, there are major advantages using Leamo.One of them is making them eager and addicted to learning new things through technology. And it improves their creative thinking skills, psycho-motor skills and reactive skills compared to other learning tools. Last but not least you don't need much parental guidance with leamo, you can easily set it up and make them learn independently.

 For more information on Leamo, please visit get-leamo and be amazed!!!!. Leamo is a proud product of Kreyonic,   An Interactive Digital Media Solutions provider specialize in providing interactive experiences, mobile solutions, that augment your perception of reality to create a new dimension in multimedia experience, taking digital media to the next level.