There are many useful apps out there to assist individuals with communication needs, developmental delays, those who are on the autism spectrum, and anyone who would benefit from a structured environment with visual schedules to increase independence and lower anxiety. Here are some of my favorites…
Pictello is the perfect tool for visual storytelling and creating a task picture book with verbal prompts, whether you use the included natural-sounding Text to Speech voices, or record your own voice. Each page in a Pictello story consists of a photo or video and up to five lines of text, which can be read aloud by a Text to Speech high quality voice or your own recorded audio.
This app has visual schedules that provide positive behavior support through the use of images that show daily events or steps needed to complete a certain activity like using the bathroom or completing a job related task. Use your own photos or add photos from the built-in Internet image search feature.
Record your own voice to the images, create as many schedules as you need, and change the order of a schedule, anytime.
The Choiceworks Calendar is a powerful picture-based learning tool that helps individuals learn what is happening day-to-day throughout each month. By presenting the abstract concept of time in a structured, visual format, Choiceworks Calendar helps people organize their lives as well as understand sequence and time. Built by the same team that brought you the award-winning Choiceworks App, the Choiceworks Calendar is the first app of its kind to provide a full-featured calendar designed with both the individual and caregiver in mind.
Visual Impact 3 provides easy step-by-step multimedia instructions for use by anyone needing a simple support to perform daily tasks of all kinds. Make a grilled cheese sandwich by yourself, learn important personal skills for applying for a job, or how to take your own blood pressure at home! Visual Impact 3 enables you to create your own custom step-by-step task instructions for any activity by adding pictures and videos from your photo library or taking new photos or videos as you build the task steps. You can also record your own verbal instructions to go along with each step. You can edit any multimedia tasks that you have previously created to personalize the learning activities with new pictures, videos, additional steps, or updated audio cues.