Communication Apps

Picture Planner
Picture Planner is a day/event planner that uses images with prompts and reminders to help individuals stay on track. Totally customizable and mobile, Picture Planner is viewable on iPad and iPod touch. Create schedules on a desktop and sync to the mobile devices so Picture Planner goes where you go.
www.cognitopia.com


School Skills
School Skills is an iPod/iPad app that addresses social skills using expected and unexpected behavior. The expected and unexpected behaviors gives the student a concrete understanding of the specific social skill. Target areas in school includes Conversations, Classroom, Cafeteria, PE, Recess, Playing Games with friends and the feelings Anger, disappointment waiting, and responsibility. The app also explains in a social story type fashion about the social skills needed.
itunes.com


Visual Prompts Board
Visual Prompts Board offers to enhance communication abilities for individuals with limited speech communication skills. The application empowers the individuals with Autism, Down syndrome, Fragile X syndrome, Apraxia of speech, communication delays or learning differences with opportunity to become independent and able to express their own specific needs and wants.
itunes.apple.com

    Autism Apps

iAssist Communicator The iAssist Communicator was designed for individuals with autism and other developmental disabilities. Unlike other iPhone - iPod Touch applications, the iAssist Communicator is specifically focused on the needs of young learners and individuals on the autism spectrum and others who are more cognitively challenged. With the unique needs of these individuals in mind, the application incorporates photos rather than more abstract drawings, larger images and functional language.itunes.apple.com

iCommunicate
Create pictures, flashcards, storyboards, routines, and visual schedules. Record custom audio in any language. Converts any words with Text to Speech that do not have custom audio recorded. We include 100+ pictures(first 5 have audio) to get you started. Add pictures with your camera, or from your camera roll, or use online image search. Utilize as audio visual prompting tool or AAC device.itunes.apple.com

iPrompts
iPrompts is a mobile, visual support aid for the iPhone and iPod Touch. This app provides several picture-based prompting tools (no voice output) for caregivers to help individuals transition from one activity to the next, understand upcoming events, make choices, and focus on the task at hand.www.handholdadaptive.com

Learn to Talk
Learn to Talk is an innovative flash card application for toddlers on the iPhone and iPod Touch. It uses both sight and sound to teach your toddler basic vocabulary words and boost their language skills. Highly interactive, colorful flash cards engage and motivate children to learn by themselves.ilearn2talk.com

ABA My First Words
The ABA My First Words App allows kids to view flash cards of some common first words as well as a matching game for pictures and words. The flash cards now have audio.itunes.apple.com

Proloquo2Go: AAC In Your Pocket
Proloquo2Go is a new product from AssistiveWare that provides a full-featured communication solution for people who have difficulty speaking. It brings natural sounding text-to-speech voices, up-to-date symbols, powerful automatic conjugations, a default vocabulary of over 7000 items, full expandability and extreme ease of use to the iPhone and iPod touch.www.proloquo2go.com

ChoiceBoard Maker
ChoiceBoard Maker is the perfect app for creating customizable choice boards for the unique needs of individuals with communication challenges. It reinforces correct choice by expanding the selected image as well as playing the customized auditory rewards.itunes.apple.com

School Skills
School Skills is an iPod/iPad app that addresses social skills using expected and unexpected behavior. The expected and unexpected behaviors gives the student a concrete understanding of the specific social skill. Target areas in school includes Conversations, Classroom, Cafeteria, PE, Recess, Playing Games with friends and the feelings Anger, disappointment waiting, and responsibility. The app also explains in a social story type fashion about the social skills needed.itunes.com

Sosh: Improving Social Skills with Children and Adolescents
SoshTM is an approach to social skills based on a decade of work with children, adolescents, and young adults who struggle with social difficulties. The Sosh framework divides social functioning into five areas essential to social skills development and success: Relate (Connect with Others), Relax (Reduce Stress), Regulate (Manage Behaviors), Reason (Think it Through) and Recognize (Understand Feelings). These "5R's" serve as a road map for individuals who want to be social, but may have faced obstacles in the past, and also serve as a guide for parents, teachers, and therapists hoping to encourage and assist individuals with their social goals.www.mysosh.com

Communicating Basic Needs App
Special Learning, Inc.'s Communicating Basic Needs App for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad is a clever tool which makes it easy for non-verbal children to let parents, teachers and caregivers what they want quickly and easily. At the same time it helps the child learn what words mean and what they sound like in an entertaining way, holding the child's interest and keeping him or her busy for long periods of time. Communicating Basic Needs App makes use of colorful and attractive real images and customizable real voices for easy application to everyday life settings.itunes.apple.com

Dance Party Zoo by FizzBrain
Many children need practice is balance, coordination and rhythm. Dance Party Zoo is a fun way to do it! This fun dancing game helps children practice basic motor and balance skills.
itunes.apple.com

All About Me All About Me is an application offering picture and text support to individuals learning their personal information. Twelve icons representing the child's name, address, birthday, home address, telephone number, family members names, pets, school, friends, favorite items, things I like, places I go and computer favorites are all included. These icons can be individualized with written text, audio and personal photos for added visual support
igetitapps.com

     Listening Games for Kids


           Top 5 To Try

• Active Listening Games
• Listening Games for First Grade & Kindergarten Classes
• Games to Develop Listening Skills
• Easy English Games for Kids
• Picnic Games for Kids & Teens

"A student's listening skills have an impact on most aspects of school life. When learning to read he will use listening skills and auditory memory to blend sounds, at sentence level he needs his memory of what has gone before to help decipher the next word. Listening skills also affect a student's ability to understand language."  By Alison Williams, eHow Contributor

Read on...  http://www.ehow.com/info_8637839_listening-games-kids.html 

      

Dr. Ann Corwin: Getting Your Child to Listen

 

Dr. Ann Corwin has 25 years experience in parenting consulting and child development education. With a Ph.D. in Marriage, Family and Child Therapy and a Masters Degree in Education, Corwin has made it her life's work to design and develop programs to ensure the health of families.

Take a look at some of her other videos at "Better Life Coaches"

http://www.youtube.com/user/BetterLifeCoaches#p/c/13327E66B1742C87

           

Books

"The Way to A" written by Hunter Manasco, Kari Dunn Buron and Katharine Manasco is a great book to read with elementary students to teach social skills.  It clearly explains behaviors that are acceptable and unacceptable at school or at home. "A" choices are safe, fun and everyone has agreed on how to work out a problem. Everyone is happy!  "B" choices are unsafe or unfair situations that hurt one or more people. Using the book as a resource helps young children identify their feelings, feelings of others and solve conflicts.
                              

Promoting Relationships and Eliminating Violence


This is a very comprehensive site ... there is something here for everyone about bullying. See below description as quoted from the PREVNet site.

"PREVNet is a national network of Canadian researchers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and governments committed to stop bullying. Bullying is wrong and hurtful. Every child and youth has the right to be safe and free from involvement in bullying. It affects children and youth who are bullied, those who bully others, and those who know it is going on."  (Quoted from the PREVnet site)                                                
              
          
      A must see website: 
       http://prevnet.ca/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx
                                         
 

PREVnet is listed as "Top Ten Trusted Resource for Parents" 
           as part of RBC's Childrens Mental Health Project!

       Auditory Processing Disorder  (APD)

An APD also known as Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD) is a physical hearing impairment, but one which does not show up as a hearing loss on routine screenings or an audiogram. Instead, it affects the hearing system beyond the ear, whose job it is to separate a meaningful message from non-essential background sound and deliver that information with good clarity to the intellectual centers of the brain (the central nervous system). When we receive distorted or incomplete auditory messages we lose one of our most vital links with the world and other people; in other words one cannot process the information heard the same way others do.

Read more: 
    http://kidshealth.org/parent/medical/ears/central_auditory.html
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_processing_disorder 
    http://www.asha.org/public/hearing/disorders/understand-apd-child.htm 

My son was diagnosed with APD by an audiologist. First we thought possibly a hearing problem since he spoke very loud but his hearing results identified he hears at -10 decibels indicating his hearing is better than most. Since he hears so well he has the need to talk loud to match the way he hears. APD was identified in his left ear so when the sound messages travel from the left side of the brain to the right and then back to the left his decoding of what he hears is scrambled beyond understanding. For this reason he is best seated at the left of a classroom from where his teacher does the lesson so to process the information in his right ear.

Sensory Processing Disorder

Here is a great video that helps one understand how

 sensory processing disorder effects an individual.

A very useful and informative site about Sensory Processing Disorder:

http://www.sinetwork.org/about-sensory-processing-disorder.html

This site is good too if you do not mind the advertisements 

http://www.sensory-processing-disorder.com/sensory-processing-disorder-checklist.html

Create quick, easy and free worksheets

School is starting and it's often hard trying to find all of the parts and pieces of what you might need to create communication overlays. Here's a quick, easy and free solution. Use the online my own worksheet website. Templates are available for a variety of devices and layouts. Create your own instructional tasks too. No more late nights trying to pull everything together. Check out the website:  My Own Worksheet

Free Communication Symbols

A great free resource. Check it out  http://www.patrickecker.org
This site was designed to be an active community for sharing graphics, pictures and visual supports. Quickpics is a free windows-based software program to use and share with others. All students need a way to express their thoughts and ideas! 

                                  

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs ~ Food for Thought

Abraham Maslow is well known as one of the founders of humanistic approach in psychology. 
He believed the "hierarchy of needs" questioned the order in which we satisfy our needs. It is interesting to see how these are a useful reminder of the number and complexity of human needs. 
Level 1 Psychological Needs: food, water, rest, sleep ... Are all these needs met before moving on to another level?
Level 2 Safety Needs: Protection from Harm ...Do we live in a safe environment?
Level 3 Love and Belonging Needs: affirmation with others and Acceptance by others ... Do we come from a loving, supportive family?
Level 4 Esteem Needs:Achievement, Gaining approval and recognition ...As early adults are we achieving our goals, establishing our careers?
Level 5 Self-actualization: achieving our true potential ... Are we meeting goals we have set out for ourselves?

When we think of young children or young adults, how are their needs meet and what course is their life taking? I think Maslow has identified some very important factors. Think of someone you know. Were their Psychological needs met as a child? If yes great, if not what could have went wrong? Did they have a safe life from harm? Regardless of ones age there are many basic needs but which does an individual value most? If we are at a higher level and our basic needs are not met we may come back down the hierarchy. If you were hungry and very lonely at the same time which would you satisfy first ... biological need (hunger) or social need (affiliation). Maslow believed when it came to satisfying our needs we begin at the bottom of the needs hierarchy and work our way up. 


FOOD FOR THOUGHT




           

Writing Problems Common in Kids With ADHD

"Writing Problems Common in Kids With ADHD" is a very informative article  
                 by  Genevra Pittman  for  Medscape


NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Aug 22 - Kids with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder are more likely to have writing problems such as poor spelling and grammar than their peers, suggests a new study" 
    
Reading and math problems often raise red flags for teachers and parents, but "written-language disorder is kind of overlooked," said study author Dr. Slavica Katusic, from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.


See more at:   http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/748413?src=mpnews&spon=12

If unable to open above link please see:    
    SOURCE: http://bit.ly/n0SSfj 
    Pediatrics 2011.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2011/08/17/peds.2010-2581

Inkless Tales is an educational, interactive site where reading, writing and drawing are combined with math and music. This site sparks creativity through learning, writing and playing.

Entertaining stories with the text read and accompanied music which flows with the story in each book.

Features I like best:  Poem books with colorful art work.  Text is read to the child in a calming voice with music in the background.

Bonus Feature for Poetry: There is an option for children to create their own poems!
See Poems page here:    http://www.inklesstales.com/poems/

Under the MORE button are science questions, click on the question to hear it read and the answer is then read.

You will also see picture music videos (Row, Row, Row your Boat etc)
http://www.inklesstales.com/videos/video1.shtml    

There are coloring pages to print and crafts and games too!

Dyslexia

Dyslexia is more than just mixing up letters and words according to this New York Times article published August 1, 2011.  Written by: Pam Belluck

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found that people with dyslexia have more trouble recognizing voices than those without dyslexia.


This research shows that normal reading involves a “circuit, the ability to have all of those components integrated absolutely automatically,” said Maryanne Wolf, a dyslexia expert at Tufts University. “One of the great weaknesses in dyslexia is that the system is not able to integrate these phoneme-driven systems” with other aspects of language comprehension.


If a teacher asked, “ ‘Oh, Sally, what is the capital of  Nova Scotia?,’ Sally will go, ‘Um, um, um,’ and the teacher will say, ‘Oh, gee, you don’t know it,’  Dr. Sally Shaywitz, a director of the Center for Dyslexia and Creativity at Yale University, said. “It’s more likely to be a problem of word retrieval than knowledge. If she reframes it as, ‘Is the capital Halifax or Charlottetown?,’ Sally is more likely to answer correctly.”

Read Full Article Here:   http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/02/health/research/02dyslexia.html?_r=2
   

Mouse Skill Web Sites

Mouse Skills - Help Kidz Learn
Some early learners need help using and controlling the mouse for computer navigation. Several sites help teach this skill.  The HelpKidzLearn site teaches mouse skills. Click on the Early Years Tab and then scroll down to and select Big Bang Bugs.

site link:  http://www.helpkidzlearn.com/early.html

Additional mouse skill sites:

• I See You!
• Mouse Program
• Drag the Hats on the Monkey - teaches click and drag
• Flower Garden - teaches mouse click and click and drag
• Bubble Wrap - who doesn't love Bubble wrap?? teaches mouse click
• Build a Snowman - timely, teaches click and drag
• Mr. Smiley Brushes His Teeth - click and drag the toothbrush to help Mr. Smiley brush his teeth, very cute. 
• Feed the Monster - click and drag

Parenting Special Needs is a very informative online magazine.

There are some great articles in this issue.
Please click here to begin reading:  http://parentingspecialneeds.org/currentissue.

What's "APP"ening? is on page 57

A Song About Feelings/Facial Cues

In this cute video, a cartoon fish asks how are you today. The fish answers he is thirsty, hungry, hot, cold, happy, and angry. Pictures are shown that match the feeling and the fish's facial cues match what he is feeling. This could be used to teaching rhyming words, to teach feelings, and to also help those special needs students who have a hard time with feelings and matching appropriate facial cue.  http://www.watchknowlearn.org/Video.aspx?VideoID=27088&CategoryID=7367 From YouTube, produced by DJC Kids

Dragon Tales Sing "Hum"-Coping with Fear, Trying New Things

This is another cute animated video that will help students with some conflict resolution techniques when they are nervous and scared. The words to the song appear on the screen and each word is highlighted as it is sung. Content is appropriate for elementary students. http://www.watchknowlearn.org/Category.aspx?CategoryID=7367 From YouTube, produced by PBS