Autism is a brain problem that can make it hard for kids to communicate.The electronic gadgets of today’s generation are making human lives simpler day by day. One of those gadgets is the iPad. This handy gadget provides all the facilities that a simple personal computer would. This has made life easier not only for normal human being, but also the mentally challenged ones. For instance, Apple has come up with many apps that are highly useful to the kids suffering from autism. Autism is a disease that deals with the ones who are mentally impaired. The children suffering from it have problem in social interaction, communication and behavior. This is a lifelong disability. Hence, it would be rather miraculous for autistic children if something like this is brought into market especially for them. Some of the apps are mentioned here as follows.
1. Prologue2Go
Highlights – This is for those children who have speaking difficulties and communication complications.
Download from – iTunes, which can be found in AppStore.
Price – $189.99
Other specifications – This app can convert text to speech voices. It also has symbols and conjunctions that help a lot in understanding. There is a default vocabulary in it. This app is also very useful for people suffering from cerebral palsy, cerebral stroke, down syndrome, etc.
2. Grace
Highlights – This app can convert text to speech voices. The words from the image link up to form a meaningful sentence.
Download from – iTunes, which can be found in AppStore.
Price – $37.99
Other specifications – It has picture and photo vocabulary by default in it. In order to enlarge the image, the iphone can be rotated to make it full sized and clearer.
There are eight cards of picture in a sentence. These cards are comparatively large on iPad.
This app increases a lot of understanding and trust between the patient and doctor or teacher.
3. iCommunicate
Highlights – This app is useful for the visually impaired children. It constitutes pics and flashcards that can make up a story or sequence of sentences. This app is specifically for iPad.
Download from – iTunes, which can be found in AppStore.
Price – $29.99
Other specifications – This app has storyboards, routines and visual schedules that make life easier and better for the victims of autism. One can also record their voice in it and teach the children. It can store more than 100 pictures and initial five of them are audio files. The additional features of this app are the camera and Googling facility.
4. iConverse
Highlight – It constitutes the picture exchange communication system (PECS). It has iPhone and iPad Touch application.
Download from – iTunes, which can be found in AppStore.
Price – $9.99
Other specifications – It can overcome other communication disabilities as well. It has six built-in communication tiles that indicate the basic needs through drawings on it. This pad is activated by touching icons that give both audio and video responses. One can even create tiles with the help of the built-in text to speech engine. There can also be voice recording done with one’s own voice in order to teach the children.
5. AutismExpress
Highlight – This app provides expressions of face.
Download from – iTunes, which can be found in AppStore.
Price – Free of cost.
Other specifications – This app can deal with emotions. It provides expressions like happy, sad, sneezy, etc. It helps the autistic child to recognize and express. It acts as a very good interface between the patient and doctor or teacher. It is available as ‘AustinXpress’ in iPhone apps itself.
6. Stories2Learn
Highlight – It is used to deal with kids with communication difficulties. It stores all the relevant things that can be of great help in making a sequence out of it later on. This builds up the story to learn for children.
Download from – iTunes, which can be found in AppStore.
Price – $13.99
Other specifications – This app can store photos, text and audio messages. It supports routings and transitions to a great extent. The only thing that is required is arranging sequentially and logically. One can add or edit the stories in this app. This improves the social skills of the autistic children to a great extent. This is generally useful for having the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as it provides good visual support.
7. My Talk Mobile
Highlight – This app is useful for all three disabilities, i.e., reading, writing and talking. These common differences can be overcome by this app by making use of the expressions of need and desire of the autistic children.
Download from – iTunes, which can be found in AppStore.
Price – $39.99
Other specifications – This app supports images, pics, symbols and audio recording in human voice. With this app, an iPhone can turn into alternative and augmentive communication (AAC) device. The unique feature of this app is that there is a My Talk Workspace and also the backup provision. Hence, if in case the iPhone’s apps get broken down, this app can be very well recovered from the backup section.
All in all, these apps not only make the life of autistic children simpler, but also ease the way of living for patients of other disabilities like cerebral palsy, down syndrome, stroke, etc.
