App Review: Toddlers Cubed

Toddlers Cubed is a great app for very young children, or clients with Autism.  Is fantastic for cause and effect and requesting.  There are six rows of cubes that change colors when touched and play a music note.  When it is not touched for a while it will randomly initiate random cubes.

The clients I see love this app and will request for music when they see my Tablet.  It is very simple and may be a great reward for a children under the age of 3.  I generally let them play with it for 30 seconds and then request a turn and them have them request a turn for themselves, so pragmatics/turn-taking can also be targeted with this app.

Also, with St. Patrick's day around the corner I've been keeping an eye out for related games, so far this rainbow color music app is about as close as I've come.

SLP app Review: Pic Collage

Pic Collage is a great app for speech pathologists looking to make a simple communication board for a client.  This would be appropriate for children or adults as well.  This is a free picture collage app that can be very helpful in making a quick picture board for a non-verbal client.

There are several different options for backgrounds, colors and text.  Additionally, any pictures in the photo gallery can be used on the boards.  This is a tool that families could easily implement as well to support communication quickly, such as when they are out of the house and may want to provide a choice board in a new place that may not be programmed in an AAC device.  

Below is an example of a board that I made for a non-verbal 4 year old child for his favorite items.  The app is quick enough to operate that I made this in a session as a test to see if my client would respond to it and he loved choosing his favorite, music, on the new board.  

Other therapy uses for this app are to make boards for basic concepts, opposites, or matching.  You can easily save it and then have the clients use skitch to edit/draw on them.  There are many great uses for this app in addition to the obvious AAC potential.

This app is certainly not the best AAC option available, but it is free, fast and very user friendly, which is a big plus for many of the families who are a little less tech savvy and has lots of other possible uses for creative speech-language pathologists out there.  

SLP app Review: Miracle Modus

Miracle Modus is a cool little app for non-verbal clients and infants. This is a cause and effect music app that is specifically designed with Autistic children in mind.   It has soothing chimes and bells and most of the modes react to touch.  My kids with Autism are entranced and will even request this app when they are not interested in any other therapy activities.  It can be a great tool in facilitating requests when using an ABA approach as this has been a great motivator for some of my kids who were just beginning to request activities.  It probably won't work with everyone, but for nonverbal kids it is worth a try, especially since it's free!