Autism Spectrum Disorder - Communication Through iPad Apps

If you didn't already love the ipad for being the coolest gadget around. (My own gushing endorsement, since I love mine to death) Now you have a new reason to love them because there are now apps to help kids with autism and speech delay.

A lot of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and speech delay, still know what they want and are able to show you with picture cards or gestures, but this can be tedious and time consuming (not to mention boring).  Now take this and add the fact that most kids love electronics.

Enter The Autism Apps

The idea behind these apps seems to be to take the skills that the children do have, like identifying what they want out of a group of pictures, and using the Ipad device to vocalize these wants for them. There seems to be an abundant number of pictures to choose from and you can even customize it by adding your own. The app speaks in complete sentences as well.

Too Late For My Son - But Not Others

When I heard about this I was super excited. My 10-year-old son has autism. He is able to talk now and that it great for us but, when he was younger his speech was delayed, he didn't really learn to communicate verbally until years later than most children. We used to use the picture cards to communicate his needs.

These cards caused a lot of frustration in my family and they would often get ruined. We made it through this period in his development but I would have given an arm and a leg to have had some of these apps when he was younger. The reason I know they would have worked for him is because he is totally obsessed with electronics, and always has been. Being able to use the touch screen to effectively communicate with me would have been so great.

This app is not lost on our family though. I have two nephews with autism and they are still having major speech delay problems. They have a patient mother who works hard with them to help meet their needs, but as both of them are computer literate and able to use the picture cards, the ipad apps that are being developed now would open up a new world of communication for them.

I have an ipad and took it upon myself to download one of these apps in order to better tell my sister-in-law about it and I must say that I am so happy they came up with this.

The app that I downloaded allows the child to choose a picture, just like with the picture cards strategy, but with the app, the pictures say what the child would like to say, and by following a sequence of pictures they can easily tell someone exactly what they want.

The only problem I have with this is the investment, because ipads are not cheap, and the thought of putting that ipad in the hands of a small child. In this case I would highly recommend that anyone doing this get a case to protect their ipad from damage. I use "Otterbox" brand, and like it very much, but I know there are other worthwhile cases out there as well.

In the end I am very appreciative of whoever put these apps on the market and am going to try to help spread the word. I think this would have made me and my sons lives easier, and I would like that for all of the families raising Autistic children with speech delays.