The iPad takeover of public education isn’t just limited to the mainstream classroom: Special needs educators, too, are discovering that iPads can be a vital tool to guide independence. What sets the iPad besides other devices would be the simple and easy and visually robust user interface you can use by everyone. It’s and a highly customizable device which might be create with applications and assistive features to support a variety of special needs.
With nearly one million apps within the iTunes App Store, identifying effective apps is frequently an overwhelming part of educators. At The Children’s Institute (TCI) in Verona, NJ—a faculty devoted to kids with autism and related special needs—we now have reviewed hundreds of applications to rate their appropriateness for the students. Teachers submit reviews in the apps that they find successful and publish them for the school’s app review blog. They also publish these reviews around the iTunes App Store for your benefit of teachers and parents worldwide.
When reviewing applications for special education, there are many of components we consider, including:
Differentiation: How adaptable is the application for the population you happen to be serving?
Alignment: How well does the approval align using your curriculum along with the student’s IEP?
Data collection: Exactly what feedback does the app provide to document progress?
Motivation: How well do students interact with the appliance?
TCI’s report on SPED-appropriate apps is obviously growing, but within the following pages we’ve compiled our top ten iPad apps for special education. And although a lot of the apps cover an extremely broad age groups, we’ve also added suggested grade levels for each and every:
1) Sosh: Stuffed with activities and tools meant to help adults and children who may have difficulty with social skills, Sosh (pronounced such as the first syllable in “social”) is divided into five sections including Relate (connect to others), Relax (reduce stress), Regulate (manage behaviors), Reason (think it through), and Recognize (understand feelings). Sosh provides the majority of the tools utilized in cognitive and behavioral therapy, and gives students having an chance to work independently to resolve their challenges. $39.99. Suggested grade level: junior high school or more.
2) Clicker Docs: An assistive word processing system that will support students having a various disabilities, Clicker Docs uses word-prediction technology to present students spelling and grammatical suggestions to fix their writing. Synthesized speech allows students to check their work by listening for auditory cues. Teachers can setup word banks to produce students with advanced vocabulary. Finally, Clicker Docs integrates with Dropbox to provide secure cloud storage and document-sharing. $28.99. Suggested grade level: primary school or higher.
3) SymbolSupport: This assistive word processor automatically translates words into pictures and symbols, a pursuit that is especially of great help for students with cognitive disabilities. Users can make new documents or copy and paste work from other apps into SymbolSupport, along with the program will convert the words into symbols. The developer, Attainment Company, also markets a complimentary SymbolSupport Viewer app that enables users to obtain, read, store, and print documents created by the complete version from the program. $59.99. Suggested grade level: all ages.
4) Time Timer: Students with special needs often times have difficulty with the notion of time. For just about any particular task, some time Timer app comes with a visual representation of times remaining that is easily recognizable with no need to understand clocks or numbers. $2.99. Suggested grade level: all ages.
5) iReward: Those who have worked in the field of special education has probably seen motivational earning charts (sometimes called point sheets). These teacher-created charts sometimes feature stick-on Velcro pictures or whiteboard checklists. While they might be highly motivating and effective, traditional earning charts are stigmatizing, specifically for mainstreamed students. There is no mistaking that this child carrying the chart to class is “different” from your other countries in the students. iReward changes all of that. Employing an iPod, iPad, or iPhone, teachers can established a variety of different earning charts for example student or many students—all of these can be kept as private because student wishes. Extra plus for your teacher: Gone are the days of laminating and cutting out photos to connect for an earning chart. With iReward, educators simply use the interior camera or Google Images search to find an appropriate image. $4.99. Suggested grade level: primary school.
6) Read2Go: To comprehend Read2Go, you have to first know very well what Bookshare is all about. Bookshare.org provides electronic copies of books and periodicals for readers with print disabilities. The books are downloaded within the electronic form which might be easily modified to meet the needs of readers with diverse disabilities. This can mean altering font, size, color, and also using text-to-speech technology to deliver read-aloud capability. Bookshare is now available absolutely free for people students with qualifying disabilities, because of a grant through the Department of Education. Read2Go is surely an assistive technology book reader that utilizes text-to-speech technology to learn to read books aloud. Read2Go’s integration with Bookshare makes locating and downloading electronic textbooks easy, provided you do have a qualifying Bookshare account. $19.99. Suggested grade level: grammar school or over.
7) ConversationBuilder: ConversationBuilder is a must-have application for every single speech language pathologist. This app prompts students through each stage associated with an interactive conversation and records their spoken responses. By the end of every session, ConversationBuilder plays back the whole conversation at a natural pace to ensure students can hear themselves successfully exchanging comments with their virtual peers. Recorded conversations could be stored and in some cases e-mailed to teachers and parents as documentation of student progress. $19.99. Suggested grade level: elementary and middle school.
8) Proloquo2Go: As the first augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) applications made for iOS devices, Proloquo2Go 's been around for a specified duration that it is bugs are exercised and has now developed a strong member. It provides an easy-to-use “voice” in case you cannot otherwise speak. One essential feature of Proloquo2Go is being able to work with iPod, iPad, and iPhone platforms. For users with fine motor or visual disabilities, the bigger screen of the iPad could be the best interface. For other users, the portability of the iPod Touch or iPhone can support independence in real life. $219.99. Suggested grade level: all ages.
9) Pictello: Stories come to life on this app that allows students and teachers to create multimedia stories and presentations using pictures in the iPad photo library. Audio for Pictello can be produced employing a text-to-speech engine, or can be recorded by a teacher or student. For all those working together with students on the autism spectrum, Pictello is a good tool for creating multimedia social stories. $18.99. Suggested grade level: any age.
10) Video Scheduler: This app is really a mix of an action schedule as well as a video model. Similar to activity schedule applications, it allows users to create checklists identifying anyone tasks needed to accomplish a goal or objective. What sets Video Scheduler apart, however, could be the substitute for such as a still photo or video segment that demonstrates how each part of the position is completed. There is a wealth of research supporting the application of both activity schedules and video models with students on the autism spectrum as well as other students who may have trouble with a serious amounts of task management. Video Scheduler empowers students to operate independently with minimum prompting from teachers or job coaches. $12.99. Suggested grade level: grade school or more.
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