Applications for Learning Disabled Students
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Writing Apps
Reading Apps
ABC PocketPhonics: letter sounds & writing + first words – Apps in My Pocket Ltd
The Emperor’s New Clothes Storybook HD – Smash Atom Software LLC
ICDL – Free Books for Children – International Children’s Digital Library – ICDL Foundation
iLook – White on Black Picture Book – ComputerNet Technologies
IMotherGoose Presents The Night Before Christmas – iReadAndLearn.com
iStoryTime Kids Books – Binky the Pink Elephant – zuuka incorporated
Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat Color & Create! – Random House Digital, Inc.
The Three Little Pigs – LAZ Reader [Level F–first grade] – Language Technologies, Inc.
Song Apps
Great for those beginning to vocalize.
Auditory Processing Disorder Apps
ABC PocketPhonics: letter sounds & writing + first words – Apps in My Pocket Ltd(phonological processing)
Tap Drums FREE – Victor Ren (pattern recognition/sequencing)
Simon- – Horizon Business, Inc. (temporal processing)
SONUS (ONE) – Matthew Applegate (temporal processing)
Kids Can Match – Animals, vocal memory game for children: full version HD! – Kids Place – Auditory Memory
Accessibility Apps
Autism Apps including Sensory or Social Skills Deficits
Look in My Eyes–clever way to help children with autism develop the habit of looking in the eyes of another person.
proloquo2Go- this must-have app provides you with alternative and augmentative communication features for children that have speech/language difficulties. The program contains text-to-speech voices, up-to-date symbols, a default vocabulary, and much more. Speech/Language therapists, teachers, and parents recommend the program for children and adults not only with autism but also for cerebral palsy, Down Syndrome, apraxia, ALS, developmental disabilities, and stroke or traumatic brain injury. Proloquo is considered by many to be the gold standard in communication apps and it’s a bit spendy. But, they have offered it at 50% off on World Autism Day, so check back.
Autism Express–facial expression and emotions are some of the most difficult things for people with Autism to interpret. This program helps Autistic individuals recognize and express their emotions through fun and easy interface games. The application is also available for free!
Model Me Going Places–great program that models social skills to kids in various settings like the playground, mall, restaurant, doctor, grocery store, and getting a haircut. It plays through each setting with pictures, text, and audio as you flip-touch through each page and “social story”. Perfect for kids with ASD to help with social skill building and understanding social situations.Plus it is free!
Stories 2 learn–create personalized social stories using photos, text, and audio messages for autistic kids that have difficulties with communication, transitioning, excursions, or routings. Easy to create sentences by just arranges pictures in a sentence. This program can be effective for children with ASD or others with special needs that do well with visual prompts.$13.99
icommunicate–amazing program that allows you to customize your in any language by creating pictures, flashcards, storyboards, vital schedules, routines, and custom audio. There are 100+ pictures to get you started and you can add pictures with the google search or your camera.
Grace–designed by Lisa Domican, a mother of two autistic children in Ireland-this application’s idea is to gracefully help autistic and other special needs children effectively communicate by building sentences from relevant images. You easily customize the app by using picture and photo vocabulary of your choice. The idea behind Grace is to ensure interaction of the user with the listener, and mutual understanding of the user’s real communication needs and build trust.
Tap to Talk Education– pretty, cool “game-like” device to teach communication. Tap the picture and the Tap to Talk speaks.With over 2,000 pictures and the ability to add your own photos and sounds, this program allows you to create a very individualized album for your autistic child. Plus it is amazingly….free!
My Talk Mobile Actions–useful app that enables people with communication difficulties to express their needs to those around them through pictures, images, symbols, and audio files including a human voice. Turns your iPad into an alternative communication device (AAC).
iConverse– this program is more like a picture exchange board (PEC) that provides the user tiles to choose from with both audio and visual. This is perfect for the ASD child that has communication difficulties.
Autism Tracker Lite-Autism Tracker can be life changing for families with an autistic child. Explore Autism. Track what matters to your child and your family. Use the visual calendar and multi-item graphs to view and discuss patterns. Share individual events or entire screens with your team using Dropbox, email or Twitter (Twitter lets you set up closed groups).
Touch and Learn Emotions-helps reinforce learning emotions of others by what their body language and expression is.
Turn Taker-Turn Taker uses visual and audio cues to facilitate turn taking and sharing for any child. The app also includes an illustrated social story about game play and sharing. This app has been used successfully with a variety of young children who find it difficult to share.
Manners Social Stories-This app includes a 10 page social story about why it is important to be polite, and how to have good manners. The app also includes a simple visual support for using the polite phrases from the story.
Autism iHelp, WH questions-Autism iHelp is a vocabulary teaching aid developed by parents of a child with Autism and a speech-language pathologist. Autism iHelp was inspired by the need for specific language intervention tools for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder focusing on their unique strengths and difficulty with expressive vocabulary.
Social Skill Builder-2 modules in the title Preschool Playtime (Preschool & Playground), 13 modules in the title My School Day (Laughing, Table Talk, Classroom, Transition Time, Lunch Time, Jungle Gym, Team Games 1 & 2, Cubby, Eating, Playground, Hall & Line Up), 2 modules in the title My Community (Friend’s House & Restaurant), 2 modules in the title School Rules! (Hanging Out & Classroom Assignments)
Social Comprehension-Social Comprehension is an app dedicated to helping people of all ages, particularly teens with Autism and other special needs. This will help with their understanding of various social situations, teaching them how to interact and study with their peers.
Autism Emotion– Autism Emotion uses music and a photo slideshow to help teach about different emotions.
Autism iHelp, Language Concepts-Autism iHelp is a vocabulary teaching aid developed by parents of a child with Autism and a speech-language pathologist. Autism iHelp was inspired by the need for specific language intervention tools for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder focusing on their unique strengths and difficulty with expressive vocabulary.
Autism Apps– If my list isn’t good enough or big enough for you, then check out Autism Apps. Autism Apps is simply a comprehensive list of apps that are being used with and by people diagnosed with autism, Down syndrome and other special needs. It also includes links to any available information that can be found for each app. The Apps are also separated into over 30 categories, and the descriptions are all searchable, so any type of app is easy to find and download.
ABA apps
ABA Problem Solving Game – Which Go Together? – Kindergarten.com
ABA – Problem Solving – What does not belong? – Innovative Mobile Apps
Best Speech Therapy apps-developed by a Speech Pathologist
Speech Therapy Apps-Articulation and Phonology
Speech Therapy Apps-Apraxia
Speech Therapy Apps-Auditory Processing
Speech Therapy Apps-Social Skills/Autism
Speech Therapy Apps-Language and Vocabulary
5 Awesome Apps for Executive Functioning “Gaps”
Dragon Dictation- free app for iPad or iPhone easy-to-use voice recognition application that allows you to easily speak and instantly see your text or email messages. In fact, it’s up to five (5) times faster than typing on the keyboard.
iAnnotate- users say it best: “Light years ahead of the other PDF annotation apps,” “an indispensable tool to have,” and “the reason I bought an iPad.” Go paperless and utilize one of the best apps for productivity available!
iStudiezPro-award winning app 2009-2010- Best Young Adults and Best Parenting App for iPad! Best App Ever Award Winner in Education category!
CourseNotes- great for students- you can add your teachers and color code all of your notes. This app allows you to take notes during class while keeping them organized by subject or meeting. Review your notes later and search through multiple class meetings and notes all at once. You can also keep a To-Do list by marking notes as To-Do items, or track them as assignments with a due date.
Nudge -quick note to remember something for tomorrow:(i.e. bring pens to school, take clothes to dry cleaner, bio test tomorrow, etc). You set it and until you shut it off it…it Nudges you.
Miscellaneous Autism and other Apps
DAF Assistant – Fluency-DAF Assistant implements Delayed Auditory Feedback (DAF) and Frequency-shifting Auditory Feedback (FAF) techniques that are known to help people with stuttering to speak more fluently.
Learn To Talk First Words – Preschool,Kindergarten Flashcards – Thunderloop
Pocket Artic – Synapse Apps, LLC
Proloquo2Go – AssistiveWare – AAC Full site
Autism iHelp – WH Questions – John Talavera
Articulation Station Pro – Little Bee Speech 3-7 years old
Graciously compiled by A Day in Our Shoes
APP GAMES FOR IOS & ANDROID
Draw Something - Free
Compatible with iOS and Android
Like Pictionary, this game gives you a word to draw out for other players to guess. You get many colors and tools with which to draw, but you're timed, so draw fast!
Hanging with Friends - Free
Compatible with iOS and Android
It's Words with Friends and Hangman combined. Build mystery words to confuse or impress other players and wait for them to send complicated words back to you.
Words with Friends - Free
Compatible with iOS and Android
Much like Scrabble, Words with Friends is one of the most popular iOS and Android apps available today. Try to spell out the most complex words for the most points!
INDIVIDUAL ONLINE GAMES
In this game of anagrams, the goal is of course to create as many words as you can in a given amount of time, with a given set of letters. Points are dependent upon the length of the word, so try to find the longest words!
Like the classic Boggle game, in Boggle Bash you must try to find as many words as you can before the clock runs out. Watch out—the game jumbles the letters for the last minute of the last round!
Try to spell as many words as you can from the letters on the chickens and solve the puzzle as fast as possible. Once you guess enough words, you will fill up the empty egg rack and advance to the next round.
In this game of definitions and deception you’ll pit your word knowledge against the clock! You’ll be presented with a word and four alternative definitions. Choose the correct definition to move on to the next word.
With each question—on topics ranging from astronomy to The Wizard of Oz—you have the choice of answering on your own or trying to beat the clock as you search for the answer on a Smithsonian website.
Press the button to have the frog generate a word for you with his bubble machine. Then, when three other words pop out of the machine, match the ones that rhyme. If you get it right, the frog will highlight and read the words aloud to you.
Knoword is a quick thinking game that helps boost vocabulary, spelling, speed of thought, as well as increasing analytical, observational, and typing skills. The object of the game is to complete as many words as possible by guessing a word based on its definition and first letter.
Solve the math problems as they scroll to the top of the screen, one after another. Be careful, though—if you hit the top, it's game over.
Spell words and let them build off of each other with this online version of the classic game. The more complex the word, the more points you get and the more you learn!
Another anagram game (much like Word Whomp, only simpler), Word Ruffle provides you with a set of scrambled letters, from which you must find as many words as possible.
The objective of Word Stone is to form as many words as possible through moving and arranging the letter tiles before the whole grid crashes down.
Try to spell as many words as you can from a given set of letters before time runs out. The more words you unscramble, the more points and bonuses you receive.
GAME WEBSITES
ABCya contains educational online games and activities for elementary students that were created or approved by certified school teachers.
DyslexiaGames.com - Various Prices
This website has tons of games, puzzles, and drawing/art projects available for purchase that aim to help dyslexic children learn better.
Logic Puzzles contains a plethora of educational and fun games that will all test and strengthen your logic skills.
The PBS Kids website contains dozens of fun activities, all organized, right on the home page, by type. Aside from reading, literacy, and spelling games, there are measurement games, math games, memory games, and much more. (Also, be sure to check out Word World on PBS Kids for lots of fun word games.)
Starfall is a free public service site that aims to teach children to read with phonics. Their systematic phonics approach and phonemic awareness practice is perfect for younger students, students with learning disabilities, and ESL students.
These "robot" games target spelling, language skills, and vocabulary. The Alpha-Bot pronounces words to help test spelling skills, the Robo-Bee pollinates flowers with words on them to help test language skills, and much more.
