Are you looking for apps, tools, and resources that you can use with your students who have Asperger’s syndrome? If so, we have you covered. Check out our list below. Let us know if there are any that we missed.
Voice Dream Reader– Voice Dream Reader, has two main functions: to turn text into speech and to assist writers with proofreading their texts. For readers that struggle with dyslexia, vision challenges, or simply those that comprehend better auditorily, Voice Dream Reader can read any text aloud in 30 languages and 186 voices. Words are auto highlighted on the screen to improve comprehension and retention. The user can change the reading speed, highlight or take notes, and change the font size, color, or spacing. To assist writers with proofreading their texts, Voice Dream Reader can help writers find the right words through phonetic and meaning searches (“enuf” brings up the word “enough” and “giant water mammal” brings up “whale”). It automatically creates an outline to help writers structure their documents—reordering sections is as easy as dragging and dropping. And proofreading is as easy as listening. Writers hear their work read aloud and can more easily spot grammar errors, typos, and awkward wording.
Voice4u– Voice4u is an app designed to assist people with communication challenges due to strokes, autism, language barriers, or traumatic brain injuries. It consists of fun and memorable images that can be used to help bridge the communication app and communicate wants and needs. Voice4u comes with 180 icons that can be sorted alphabetically or put into categories such as foods, activities, and greetings. The user can also create individualized icons to suit their needs. This app is useful for families, special education teachers, and speech therapists.
Autism Xpress– Created to help young people with autism assess their mental state using a feeling seeker. The app includes fun games to help lighten the mood.
First-Then– The First-Then app is created with most autistic children in mind. Most children with autism expect order and certainty in their day to day routine, which is what the First-Then app does. It helps children to select their preferred formats of customizing their daily schedules.
Grace– Grace is a non-speaking exchange system created for people with autism to make their needs known independently. Users of this app can choose pictures to form a semantic sentence and share it by tilting the iPhone or iPod touch to get a full-screen view and then pointing at every card and watching as the listener read each word.
iPrompts– IPrompts is an organizational app that makes use of timers and visual prompts to provide children with autism spectrum disorders a way of knowing and seeing their daily schedule. This app is used by many caregivers around the globe to develop and present visual schedules, timers, and choices to people with autism spectrum disorders. iPrompts is available for iPhone, iPod Touch, IPad, Amazon Kindle Fire, and the Barnes and Noble Nook tablet.
iReward– This app is a motivational tool that can be used on your iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. IReward helps you create a token board to reinforce positive behaviors using visual rewards. This app is particularly great for parents of children with disorders such as autism, ADHD, anxiety, and developmental delays because it serves as a form of motivation to them. The app is customizable and supports multiple users.
Orange Neurosciences– Orange neurosciences has developed a new product, ReadON, which is designed to provide a better, scalable solution for people with reading difficulties, AD, autism and associated stress, anxiety, depression, and other conditions. ReadON works exceptionally well for children with problems relating to dyslexia, ADHD, ASD, or other learning disorders. These conditions usually affect their ability to retain information leading to poor working memory and reduced executive functioning skills. The app helps adults dealing with stress, anxiety, and depression resulting from lifelong struggles with literacy. It is also useful for those with poor information retention and eye movement control limitations.
Pictello– Children with autism have language difficulties across the spectrum; some can express themselves using words, while others are nonverbal. Pictello has a solution, no matter the level of language disability. It enables these children to use photos, videos, and audio to share their opinions, views, and stories.
Read to Learn– Children and adults with developmental disabilities such as autism require special attention and teaching methods. Read to Learn focuses on comprehensive literacy and life skills to help kids and adults with developmental disabilities learn. The app uses heavily illustrated and interactive books with age-appropriate concepts to teach skills such as safety, life, and feelings. Up to 85 stories are available to the user with graded comprehension tests, texts spoken by professional narrators, and a text highlighting system. The meaning and pronunciation of every word can be heard when the user touches it.
See.Touch.Learn– This app assists teachers and parents of children with Autism and other special needs. It gives access to speech therapists, teachers, and parents to edit and modify the lessons according to each child’s level. This app is certified by TeachersWithApps, graded an A+ in educational value; it has also received awards and been endorsed as one of the top apps for special needs.
Special Words– Special Words is a speech and language development app that is adaptable to individual student’s abilities and needs. This app was specifically created for children and adults with learning disabilities and/or those with autism. There are five areas of targeted development covered by the app: communication and language skills, sight-word vocabulary, listening and speaking skills, hand-eye coordination, and fine motor skills. Teachers and parents can import text, photos, music, and record messages to personalize the app and target student’s specific interests. Adjustable animation speeds are also included to accommodate different abilities and concentration levels.
Speech Blubs– A voice-controlled speech therapy app, Speech Blubs makes learning new sounds and words fun. Created for children with speech delays, apraxia of speech, autism, down syndrome, ADHD, and sensory processing disorders, Speech Blubs has over 1,500 activities. Included in the app are 14 fun sections such as Yummy Time, Sing Along, and This is My Body. To encourage student engagement, Speech Blubs uses facial detection so students can wear funny hats and sunglasses, lets students collect and fill virtual sticker books, and uses candy-shaped rewards so students can unlock humorous content.
Story Builder– Story Builder is designed to be a fun way to improve students’ ability to create narratives. The app’s goal is to improve paragraph formation, idea integration, and higher-level abstractions. These goals are accomplished through three levels of play with an easy-to-use recorder to record student narratives. Later, the app merges the student’s recorded answers into a larger narrative. With over 50 storylines and 500 questions to guide the narrative, students can create lots of different stories. Story Builder is particularly useful for special needs students with sensory processing disorders or those on the autism spectrum, as it includes extensive use of audio clips.
