Thursday, October 9, 2014

Apps for Autistic and Nonverbal Children


Lauren Meatty gave a lot of great information in her seminar, including many apps that assist students with communication and learning in a fun way.

Learner characteristics: don’t have physical mobility, don’t have communication skill, kids who don’t engage with other objects or devices,

Challenges: this is not for all students, many of the communication apps are not programmable for individual needs, certain apps only offer limited choices of customization, iPads are extremely fragile devices, students needs to be familiar with the features and commands on iPads

Strengths: typically students will engage with the iPad, helps develop fine motor skills (touching, pointing, sweeping finger, hand-eye-coordination) without it being obvious

Age level: Lauren said that she specifically works with pre-school aged students, but the iPad can be used with any age

Apps: Magic Piano, Duck-Duck-Moose, sign language app, Going Places (social stories), Yes No, SonicPics, SpeakIt!, Proloquo2Go, Doodle Buddy, Etch a Sketch app, Monkey Preschool, Lunchbox, Simon Says, Memory Games, and many more.

I am comfortable with using the iPads in the classroom, but I would like to know more about using them with older grades.  The communication methods with adults and students (via: buttons, text to speech, sign language) are a great use to keep in mind, at any age. Some of the ways to incorporate the iPad into the younger classroom would be: another way of writing, instructing appropriate social settings, additional support for classroom activities and concepts (handwriting, social stories, counting, identifying).

No comments:

Post a Comment