Miracle Modus app (free) for iPhone/iPad and for Android,  is a really interesting app developed by an individual who enjoys patterns  and mathematical calculations. After diving under the hood I found this apps development and features to offer more than what just meets the eye initially, offering insight and reasoning for the app as explained in iTunes:

“The Miracle Modus is a source of hypnotic rainbows and soft bells. I’m autistic, and I wrote this because I wanted something to mitigate sensory overload. I find mathematically patterned rainbow lights very soothing. After I showed it to a couple of friends and they had similar experiences, I decided to publish it.”                                                            (Retrieved on 10/2/2012 from iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id555904748?mt=8 )

The app provides a variety of pattern “scenes” that can each be enabled/disabled in the settings menu. The patterns also are explained in the settings menu and are worth taking just a few moments to realize the sophisticated, mathematical features of each of the patterns and how each of them are uniquely interactive.

Visiting The Miracle Modus website will provide you information on Understanding the Modes , if interested.  The pattern choices in the app include:

• Spiraling shapes & Spiraling shapes 2
• Painting hexes
• Knights & Knights 2
• Bouncing Spline
• Cascade & Cascade 2
• Lissajous figures
• Raindrops
• Bouncing lines
• Wandering color

Here are some samples of the patterns but which does not do them justice with out the interactivity of the real app: 

Sound choices are “metal bell” (a pleasant chime like sound) or “Airy Bell” (a   synthesized piano sound) or sound can be turned off. Sound tempo differs for each of the patterns chosen varying from fast to  slow and very rhythmic to varied tempo pending the visual pattern chosen.

The developer in his website link A Note About Autism provides a caveat about the app: “Note that this app is not a medical device, it’s not something that has been checked with the FDA, or anything like that.”It will not “cure” autism”. It may help some autistic people handle a common problem we have, that being sensory overload. It won’t help everyone; autism is a spectrum, not a single trait that’s the same in everyone, and not all autistic people find the same things soothing or even tolerable.” (Retrieved on 11-3-2012 from http://www.seebs.net/modus/autistic.html ).

I found this app very calming to watch and listen to with a wide variance of tempo and rhythmic included in the different patterns. Realizing the sophistication of the mathematical base and interactiveness of the app gave me a huge appreciation of the resources put into developing this app (there is an in app purchase option for donating money to the developer ). Another aspect is the insight it provides from a perspective of an autistic perspective of what might calm. Given that all of us have our own uniqueness, this app might be helpful to some and not everyone as the developer mentioned.

Thank – you to the Miracle Modus developer for providing this app for free and sharing his perspectives for better understanding and tools for the offering.

More for your OT i/mTool Kit!

For more information about the story behind the creation of this app check out the developers’ website The Miracle Modus .

Carol