Do you work with students who have difficulty with letter reversals and identifying left versus right?
Binary Labs, creator of Dexteria app have created LetterReflex App which focuses on remediating reversals of letter and in words and right and left discrimination. Games focusing on discriminating directionality of letters such as b and d are included. Skills focused on include activities reinforcing left and right using a kinesthetic approach which require tilting the iPad to the left and right when forming a letter.
LetterReflex also collects data on student performance.
Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, this app currently is 1.99 as an introductory special.
Thanks to Gail for sharing this new app! Another treatment activity for your OT iTool kit!
In my years of OT work with students, intervention for improving visual motor skills included many activities. When needing to support students ability to produce artwork in classroom projects or in art class using step by step drawing tasks focusing on production of people, animals and objects using basic shapes in a sequential fashion. One of my pre-digital favorite resources for step by step drawing were the books by Ed Emberly who created his Big Orange, Big Green, Big Purple and more books that displayed step by step instructions of animals, insects and other things kids would be drawing (and because I can’t draw either). Although those still are great resources (if you find them in the library they are among the tattered, frequently used and loved books), of course there are also an apps for that providing step by step drawing instruction.
iLuv Drawing – Made by Learn with Fun Apps has created this step by step drawing app that is created with easy tools in a simple tracing format with audio instructions. Currently free, this app provides instruction for drawing 40 different animals using crayons, markers and other tools. Easy to use with a step by step method and audio of creating a digital picture, this app can be used for preschool through early elementary aged students.
iLuv Drawing also allow you to email your creations for printing and sharing. Here is a great review of iLuv Drawing from Technology in (Spl) Education . Available for iPad only.
Learn with Fun Apps also is the developer of the iLuv Drawing Santa app previously reviewed in an earlier posting on holiday apps. With the same kind of step by step drawing instructions, this app provides great seasonal visual motor activities with models of christmas tree, snowman and bell and other season items to draw through the winter months. Made for the iPad and also currently free!
These apps are a great addition to your OT itool kit and free helps you fill your tool kit without emptying your pocket book! What a great gift! Thank you Learn with Fun Apps!
PS- Learn with Fun Apps also have some maze apps I haven’t trialed but would be worth checking out from experience with iLuv Drawing apps!
Looking for some holiday apps to use with your students?
Digital Storytime provides great reviews and deals on apps for children and students. Their Daily Deal Page, Holiday tab lists 9 different holiday apps for free. The apps feature drawing, educational content, stories and fun content. Searching other Digital Storytime tabs (check the Home, Books and Games tabs) you will also find holiday for-pay apps you may want to peruse. Although most of the apps are based on Christmas themes, one of the free daily deal apps is a Hanakkah and another a Snowman Builder HD app to stay culturally sensitive (see reviews and links below). Most of the apps also have winter activities such as snowman or tree activities that can be used during the winter months.
Here are some of of the apps that are my favorite for fine motor development that will be included in my OT iTools kit:
(Warning ! Cut the Rope: Holiday Gift is very addictive – trialing the app cut may interfere with holiday prep time!)
Toca Boca Hair Salon – (Free) – Cut, color and style Santa Claus beard and hair or shape the pine needles on the christmas tree! Simple but fun fine motor app the students (and adults) will enjoy!
Snowman Builder – (Free) Choose from several backgrounds then create and customize a snowman! Choose from a variety of parts and pieces. Provides opportunity for sizing the snowballs, adding body or snowman parts to create your own customized snowman. App allows you to email your creation.
123 Color: Hanakkah Coloring Book – (Free) 123 Color Hanukkah Edition now teaches numbers, letters, and colors, with voice-overs spoken in 12 languages and dialects.
iLuv Drawing Santa HD – (Free) A drawing and tracing app appropriate for younger students. Provides lines to trace to create santa, christmas tree, bells, snowman so it can be used during the winter season. Step by step instructions are provided to add details to the drawing. Blank pages are provided to draw your own. Good for eye hand coordination and great for children who have a difficult time holding or prehending drawing or coloring tools due to strength or developmental skills.
Other available free holiday from Digital Storytime are stories that will support students who are emergent readers or have difficulty accessing a hard copy book if the student is able to swipe to turn the page when using an iPad. Check out the other free holiday apps or all the other apps reviewed at Digital Storytime. It is a great educational resource!
I am sure there are many other holiday apps available. Here are just a few more apps, some that focus on other cultural seasonal celebrations to stay culturally diverse:
Christmas Tale II HD – (Free) A story book that provides read to me (read aloud) of the story line for emergent readers. Adds are posted and cost to remove.
Kwanzaa app – (Free) 7 Principles – Daily affirmations of the principles of Kwanzaa.
It seems like endless resources are available for special needs students for mobile devices! I never cease to be amazed at what is available!
The Friendship Circle Blog is a website dedicated to the Friendship Circle organization of Bloomfield Michigan that supports special needs individuals with local teen volunteers.
One of their blogs is a series of posts featuring The Special Needs iPad and App Series which presents 9 articles or posts reviewing apps for iOS and Android mobile devices focused on specific needs for individuals special needs. Here is a listing of the articles posted on their 9 article series:
I found some familiar apps and some new apps or review sites I had not stumbled upon before. The review of social and life skills app reviews were helpful to me as new area of need as we deploy additional iPad and iPods in some of our multi-categorical classroom where functional life skills are an area of focus for students with varying needs. Here are examples of the social and life skills apps they review in their Part 4 Post :
I also found a couple more app review websites unfamiliar to me. As the Android app market grows, availability of apps for other platforms are needed and are also included in the reviews.
If you work with students with developmental delays, cognitive impairment, autism or other significant special needs, I believe you’ll find worthwhile apps and resources in this series!
Grasshopper apps are some of my favorite apps for special needs students and pre-k and elementary aged students. They provide clean, wonderful real pictures, customization and real voices to their apps. Again, they provide those of us in education more new apps that benefit our students.
Here is their latest gone free along with one offered in iOSnoops today. I am providing links as a fast method of getting this out:
Check their website for additional apps that are free. It is worth your time if you service emergent literacy learners, elementary school students and special needs children:
Looking for a stand for your iPad? There are many out there however if you are needing a stand that provides good stability and durability when used with students with special needs, the list appears to reduce. Listed are some stands that provide stability and adjustability when choosing a stand for individuals with special needs. Mounts for attachment to wheelchairs or for specific positioning needs are not review in this post.
RJ Cooper has developed two tablet stands that will accommodate an iPad and are recommended for their stability:
RJ Cooper Variable-angle Super Stand – The Variable-angle Super Stand (49) adjusts to 30 and 45 degrees and can be collapsed to live flat for transport. Rubber feet assist with stabilizing it.
Otterbox Defender Case – This case has a cover which provides a pull out stand. Although it is not adjustable in angle, it provides a fairly stable base due to the rubber inserts provided on the case. The iPad can be positioned in portrait and landscape with the iPad2 case. My experience finds the iPad2 Otterbox stand improved over the first iPad stand.
Big Grips Frame and Stand – This iPad case also can be purchased with a stand (49.95) and provides a few different positioning options. Reviews report the durability and ease of handling but not the stability of the stand. Looks promising however. Nothing that a bit of Dycem could not cure?
Ablenet Mounting Device – This product provides strong and stable mounting for your iPad 1 or 2 in either portrait or landscape orientation. The cradle securely holds the iPad steady while it’s in use and still provides access to all controls and jacks. 89.00 from Ablenet.
Any other stands worth mentioning when needing to position the iPad for students with special needs? If you have another stand worth mentioning please comment!
Spell checking apps reviewed in this post focus on apps for individuals with learning disabilities that will replace handheld spell checkers. Such spell checkers, such as the Franklin Kids Dictionary, provides text to speech and phonetic based spelling suggestions are frequently used in our classrooms at school as a universal design tool for all students. Phonetic based spell checkers provide support for students who have acquired conventional spelling and have difficulty using standard, alphabet spell checking tools.
American Word Speller App – This American Wordspeller and Phonetic Dictionary app is one of few I found that uses a phonetic basis to spell checking. By typing in the first 2-3 letters of how the word sounds to you a list of possible words are generated. If the word is not there you can type in 2 more to narrow the search.
American Word Speller and Phonetic Dictionary is available for Android, iPad, iPod/iPhone for $4.99. An ESL Edition is also available.
SpellChecker√ – This spell checking app by Enfour is available in a multilingual edition (1.99) and an English version (.99). Although it is not phonetic based it provides non-alphabetically choices in the list of spelling choices, especially helpful if individuals recognize the correct spelling. Spelling and grammar correction is offered in the app.
Although it has no text to speech to hear the words, I was able to use the Voice Over function with the Triple Click option turned on (this is one of my favorite accessibility features!! in the iPhone/iPod and iPad). Tools to edit the dictionary and learn new words are also options. SpellChecker can be used to write and email, SMS, and can be integrated with American Heritage Dictionary or Oxford Dictionary if purchased and installed on your device. Text can be copied and pasted into other apps and it also reports it can be integration with other third-party apps.
The above image displays some of the languages of the multilingual version. Available for iPod/iPhone and iPad.
Speller – Free Spell Checker App – This is a free spell checker app providing spell checking and alternate spelling options. Provides a single word entry which does not accept hyphenated words (self-esteem) or two-word entries. Did not find corrections for phonetic entries as fone or phun when entered.
English and Spanish language options are available in the app. Also provides dictionary option with Wi-Fi connection. I was not able to use Voice Over with Triple Click feature turned on with Speller- Free Spell Checker app.
Available for iPhone/iPod and iPad for free. Ads are presented on this app and can be removed with a $.99 purchase.
iSpellChecker – This is another free spell checker that provides word processing capabilities with spell checking tool included. It offers a list of approximately 6 words in the correction at times offered a phonetic spelling choice in the list (did not catch fone, but did offer a correction to phun).
Voice Over using the Triple Click option was also able to be used in this spell checker. No dictionary is available but email and SMS forwarding is an option. Other language choices are available in the app and integration into Twitter app. No advertisement appears in the app.
Other options for individuals with learning disabilities for spell checking include use of dictionaries that provide the voice search option when Wi-Fi connectivity is available. The dictionary apps as reviewed in an earlier post Apps for LD – Dictionaries #1 lists the following choices which have the voice search options:
Another option with the availability of Wi-Fi is the use of Gingersoftware.com spell checking tool if appropriate for the student’s skills. Ginger software provides online phonetic spell checking and grammar correction for the most aberrant spelling. It is a remarkable tool (it would be great if they came out with an app!) for students with learning disabilities! Check it out on their website which provides an available on line tool.
With numerous choices of spell checking apps, selection and use is dependent on the task, spelling skill and technical skill of the individual, connectivity and funds available for purchasing an apps. There are some possible free choices as well as possibilities for purchased apps that are suitable to individuals with learning disabilities when looking for a spell checking tool. Although I was not able to trial the American Word Speller app, its phonetic base and not being dependent on Wi-Fi are appealing to me.
If you have experience or a favorite spell checking app please comment with your favorite spell checking app. It is always helpful to have tried and true experiences on apps!
A post a couple of days ago briefly reviewed RJ Cooper’s Point to Pictures app currently availlable for free. As a developer of software and hardware for individuals with special needs, RJ has developed software Spell A Word for the Mac and PC which is now available as an app for the iPad and iPod/iPhone. The great news is he is offering it free for a limited time.
Here is bit more about the app:
Spell A Word – Information in iTunes describes it as a large-print, early academic program is for beginning to advanced letter users. Features allows it to be customized for individual students.
It uses an errorless learning method. Spell-A-Word works on identification, spelling, & word recognition (for reading). Scaffolding (as much help as needed but as little as possible) is embedded so as to help those with significant cognitive challenges. Customizing features are available in the teachers control tools (see image below).
This program is designed for you to easily enter lists of spelling words/phrases for the learner to practice and be tested on. Word lists consisting of hundreds of words/sounds/pictures are available from the developer’s website at no charge for sharing and uploading. Assessment data collection is available in Spell A Word – a huge bonus for tracking student skills.
Spell-A-Word also has special feedback for blind learners. Available also for MAC and PC, additional information and images on software features is provided on RJ Cooper’s Spell A Word for the PC and Mac link with examples of its use and additional word lists provided by Cynthia Weeks!
Thank you RJ Cooper for providing this app to our special needs students on a highly mobile, accessible and motivating tool. As a developer of adaptive tools RJ Cooper has provided special needs individuals years of support and products for access and learning (remember the Cooper Car??- I do!!). Thank you for allowing us access to you apps for free! What a boon!
Fun Educational Apps website reviews educational apps for kids in different age categories. They also list sale apps or apps gone free. This is a new website I just stumbled upon and found a number of interesting apps suited to OT practice.
One app, Alien Buddies is a free app today only (I apologize for the late find!) for young children ages 3-7 with activities focusing on:
Matching shapes, colors and letters
Dot to dot with sequential counting and for eye-hand coordination
Stickers reward as a creative activity
The matching and dot to dot activities are tasks familiar to OT’s and can be treatment activities to add to your OT iTool kit. Although I have not tested this app, it has gotten great reviews (5 stars) as a recent release. Available for iPad, iPod/iPhone, this app normally sells for $1.99.
I hope you’ll be able to take advantage of this freed app. If you aren’t able to get this app in time, there are other apps listed that seem worth the visit. The Fun Educational Apps deals appears worth visiting or adding to your RSS feeds list.
Tired of dealing with tangled charging and ear bud cords?
Having numerous devices to care for, the tangled mess of cords often defies me. More than a year ago I was at Batteries Plus and found these handy little AppleCore gadgets that immediately found a home with my devices!
AppleCores come in different sizes and colors and can be purchased individually or in combo packs.
Looking for a stocking stuffer? Applecores might just be a good choice. Available online from Applecore International, Batteries Plus or Amazon.com (yes and it is an Amazon Prime item!).
Spell-A-Word 
OT's with Apps & Technology 