SpecialNeedsWare has developed an app for the iPad that incorporates images and video to acclimate autistic kids to daily tasks.
Software company SpecialNeedsWare has developed an iPad
app that allows children with autism to work on their communication
skills using the Apple tablet.
Launched in February, the app AutisMate
provides a customized library of images, sounds, signs and symbols to
ease behavioral processing for autistic kids.
Video modeling aids
children in developing social, communication, functional and behavioral
skills.
"It's an iPad app that really allows those with autism to connect with
the world around them through giving them a means of communication and
learning new life skills," Jonathan Izak, founder and CEO of
SpecialNeedsWare, told eWEEK. "The app allows you in intuitive
ways to use visuals from users' own environments to communicate and
learn these various skills."
Children with autism have difficulty with oral communication, and the
app allows them to communicate their needs in a particular environment.
Visual scene displays present interactive photos with hotspots that
allow autistic users click on symbols within images. With AutisMate, "a
child can tap on a fridge and see items inside," Izak noted.
The app also allows users to view videos or stories that teach about specific behaviors or activities.
AutisMate is an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) tool
that uses pictures and symbols to help an autistic child communicate. It
incorporates a grid-based system that allows users to tap on symbols to
build sentences.
"If you tap on a sentence bar, it will read out the entire sentence," Izak said.
Izak developed the app after seeing his 12-year-old brother, Oriel
(pictured here), cope with autism. Compared with an 8-pound device that
hangs around the user's neck and costs thousands of dollars, an app on
the iPad proved more practical for autistic kids to learn about daily
tasks, he said. The iPad costs a fraction of the price of traditional
AAC devices, according to SpecialNeedsWare.
The appearance of the iPad is less intrusive than the heavier, more expensive devices, Izak noted.
AutisMate allows autistic children to use the iPad's GPS features to
learn about scenes based on their current location, such as the kitchen
or bedroom in their home, or scenes around a school.
The app also teaches about tasks in a workplace such as clearing
windows, folding pizza boxes or working in a car wash, Izak noted.
AutisMate provides help with learning how to carry out ordinary tasks
independently such as brushing your teeth. By using the app, a child
nearly mute from autism learns how to navigate tasks such as creating a
sandwich at a local cafe, according to SpecialNeedsWare.
Even children who are 4 to 8 months old respond to the images on the
iPad, said Melanie Johnston, a speech and language pathologist and an
autism and behavior consultant at Brite Success in Houston.
"If we are able to accomplish that, I know we will be able to accomplish
great milestones with older children and young adults," Johnston told
the AutisMate blog.
The app allows autistic individuals to watch videos on how to answer the
phone, navigate a grocery store, wash their hands, tell time or cope
with a doctor's office visit.
In addition, the McCarton School in New York City is using AutisMate to
incorporate the iPad into its classroom lessons. Boston Children's
Hospital is also working with AutisMate to use the iPad in its research
on autism.
The IT industry is working to encourage developers to create apps that
help children with autism. On April 12 and 13, AT&T and Autism
Speaks held a hackathon
to spur the development of apps that help autistic people. Participants
used APIs from AT&T's mobile platform to create apps based on ideas
from visits to the Facebook page of Autism Speaks.
Source : eWeek , 14th May 2013
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