Ways Technology Can Help Those With Special Needs

          Technology has become a huge part of today’s society. According to this article, IPods and IPhones offer more than games and shopping apps do. These forms of technology are now providing those with special needs, along with teachers and parents to overcome their learning disabilities. Joe Ashby writes about his top ten apps that can help children with special needs. In what follows I am going to tell you how these apps can be useful to teachers dealing with children who have special needs.

         The first one he mentions is VAST-Autism 1-Core and this app provides therapy to those with autism and motor speech disorders like aparaxia. Basically what is does is combine video modeling with auditory cues as well as written words. This could be used in a classroom to help children form words, phrases as well as sentences so they can say them themselves. So after you show a child how to use this app you then can ask them questions and let them try themselves to use this app to answer your question. This would be great when you’re dealing with younger kids and their first starting to make sentences.

         Another app that is great when dealing with younger children is next app that was mentioned in the article which is Language Builder Deluxe. It was created to help children improve on forming their own sentences, boost receptive and expressive language skills and sentence ideation. The audio clips helped improve auditory processing for children with autism spectrum or sensory processing disorders. Due to the new technology we have in school these days like smart board teachers could share these audio clips to their whole class. The student could just go up and touch the screen to play back the voice and that would help them in reinforcing their language development. 

          The next app mentioned is the Autism app and it is basically just a huge list of different apps that are used by those with autism and downs syndrome. So of course this would be great to share with classes that deal just with either autism or down syndrome students. All aren’t relevant so you being a teacher and knowing your students you should just go through the list in advance and find out what apps will work best for your students and then share them so it makes it easier for the students to find them. The teacher can present the different apps on a smart board or show students how to find which app they like by demonstrating on an IPAD.

          Cause and Effect Sensory Light Box is used for a teenager classroom environment. The student’s disabilities include visual impairment, autism and developmental disabilities. What’s great about this app for a classroom is that its hands on. I know its hands on already being that you’re able to use it on your IPad but I mean that it deals with a lot of finger movement. The app also encourages development and basic awareness due to you being able to touch and use gestures through open-ended exploration and play. Another thing that is cool about this app is that there are different interacting scenes but as a whole you get a fun response to the different combinations of taps, presses, sweeps and controlled movements.

           The next app is the British Sign Language Finger Spelling. So of course when you hear this you already know the downfall for this one is that it’s only meant for those who are British. But those from other countries need to learn too, or it would be great for learning a second language class. The app is really to help those who are impaired to learn and practice the British two-handed finger spelling alphabet at their own pace. It’s great for teachers because it helps them to know how to sign as well. So in a classroom this would be helpful to show and teach other how to sign.

           ArtickPik-Full is one of my favorite apps because it uses flashcards and to me that’s one of the best ways to learn. I use flashcards myself when studying for tests because it helps me to memorize things better. The app is designed for children with speech delays and there are matching activities as well with it. This is great for the classroom because it has a scoring feature for up to 4 children at a time so you can play in groups or on teams. It would be a fun and engaging game to play with your students. I think that these type of games, meaning using flash cards and matching are a fun way to learn and keep your students involved.

           An award winning app was Letter Reflex and it helped people with dyslexia overcome their mix up with letters. This app was designed to make learning fun an effective. Dyslexia Quest is another app for those mixing up letters. In this app it teaches though a series of games and that’s great for a classroom because which child doesn’t like to play games. This app works to assess memory, phonological awareness, processing speed, visual memory and sequencing skills. What is Dyslexia is another app that is free and lets you understand what dyslexia is through a video comic and then had a quiz. This is great for assessing students at the end. The app also has tips and hints for teachers to help improve communication.

           Number ten is, See. Touch. Learn. and it’s for those who have autism. This is great for a classroom because it’s a picture card lesson which kind of relates to the Letter Reflex app because it uses flashcards. The difference though is that it tracks the responses of the child. So basically the app shows a picture and maybe the teacher could ask the student to talk about the picture. This is a great app for younger children like kindergarteners who learn better by looking at pictures. This is also great for those who have autism because it gives the student time to think and analyze the picture before giving an answer.