Proposed use of I pod Touch apps: Blackburn Primary Autism Unit
Literacy &
English
Expressive
Arts
Health &
Wellbeing/
Social
studies
Mrs Rea Gourlay : Class Teacher Blackburn Autism unit :Feb 2011
Initial proposed app for
use with I pod touch.
CfE Experience
& outcome
Intended outcome for learner
Autism specific advantages of the technology: Developing the four
capacities.
•Pocket SLP (speech &
Language)
•Speech with Milo
•Match 2 say
•Articulate it
•Talking Tom/Hippo etc
•Tap to talk.
•First words.
I enjoy playing
with the patterns
and sounds in
language
•Increased understanding and use of
prepositions and action words.
•Conversational skills , turn taking.
•Targeted development of specific
phonemes and speech sounds children
having difficulty with.
•ABC pocket phonics.
•Interactive alphabet.
•Teach me reception.
•Rhyme book and Dr
Seuss.
•iLearn to read.
•Sentence builder.
•Nursery rhyme time.
I explore sounds,
letters and
words,
discovering how
they work
together.
• Drawing pad.
•Paint studio
(allow uploading of own
photo’s)
•Kid animation.
•Doodle town.
•Kid music
I have the
freedom to
discover & choose
ways to create
images.
Successful Learners
•Developing communication and language skills.
The children have difficulty processing and retaining
verbal information. The apps support the development of
expressive and receptive language skills, support
pronunciation and increase vocabulary, these skills are a
focus for learning and teaching for the children and
underpin all other areas of learning and development. The
technology also gives immediate feedback which helps
develop self assessment skills.
•A consistent visual environment.
Human faces with constantly changing expressions often
leads to sensory overload in children with autism. The apps
offer a consistent and repeatable visual environment which
would help overcome these barriers to learning. Children
with autism tend to be very visual learners thus the visual,
hands on nature of the technology enhances learner
experience and engagement.
•A wide variety of apps developing the same core skills.
•Children with autism have difficulty transferring skills to
new contexts.
The apps allow a format for developing and applying
academic, social, critical thinking and problem solving skills
in a huge variety of contexts.
•Model me going places.
•Stories 2 learn.
•Expressive
•Smile at me
As I listen & talk
in different
situations, I am
learning to take
turns.
I enjoy exploring
characters &
events in stories.
I have the
freedom to use
my voice, musical
instruments and
technology to
discover sounds &
rhythm
I know that we
all experience a
variety of
thoughts and
emotions and I
am learning ways
of managing them
I am aware and
able to express
my feelings.
•Further development of letter / sound
awareness and letter formation.
Blending skills through audio word
games.
•Sight words through visual / audio and
touch games.
•Development of pre reading and word
attack skills, matching common words
to pictures.
•Development and awareness of
patterns and sounds in language.
•Creative use of colors.
•Can copy and extend patterns.
•Development of creativity and
imagination.
•Link to Literacy through use as a
stimulus for story telling.
•Development and awareness of
patterns and sounds in language.
•Can demonstrate steps involved in
simple social situations, i.e. going to
shop.
•Increased awareness of simple social
cues through personalised and
preloaded stories, i.e. eye contact, turn
taking.
•Increased awareness of and
interpretation of simple facial
expressions and relation to emotions.
Confident Individuals
•Communication and social interaction modeling.
Children with autism struggle with communication and
social situations. The apps provide a safe and familiar
context for relating to others. Apps such as model me,
model social situations (I.e. going to a shop) in very small
steps thus teaching children how to manage themselves and
be independent. The use of apps ideally meets learner
needs as they can ‘practice’ social situations without fear
of failure and sensory overload. The difficulty autistic
children have with imaginative play and sensory overload
currently make this difficult to break down into Small
manageable steps in learning.
Proposed use of I pod Touch apps: Blackburn Primary Autism Unit
Mathematics
Initial proposed app for
use with I pod touch.
CfE Experience
& outcome
Intended outcome for learner
•Number tracer
•Learn numbers.
•123 colour
•Teach toddler shapes.
•Kid Math
•Solving Maths
I have
explored
numbers,
understand
they represent
quantities &
can use them
to count,
create
sequences and
describe order.
•Matching sets to numerals and number
formation.
•Development of 1-1 correspondence
through touch screen counting games.
•Basic mental maths, show
understanding of addition and
subtraction.
•Recognition of colours, shapes, can
continue and make patterns.
•Problem solving skills in real life
context.
I enjoy
investigating
shapes and
objects and
can describe
and be creative
with them.
General
Cross
curricular
•Giraffes Pre school
playground.
•Pre school adventure.
•Its Learning time.
•World Atlas and
Encyclopedia Britannica
kids.
•Teach me reception.
Within real and
imaginary
situations I share
experiences and
feelings, ideas &
information in a
way that
communicates my
message.
I explore
software & use
what I learn to
solve problems &
present my ideas
thoughts or
information.
I am developing
problem solving,
navigation &
coordination.
I explore and
discover features
of the
environment
helping me to
make sense of
the world around
me.
Mrs Rea Gourlay : Class Teacher Blackburn Autism unit :Feb 2011
Autism specific advantages of the technology: Developing the four
capacities.
Effective Contributors and Responsible Citizens.
Autism specific apps.
Children with autism have difficulty with face to face
social situations. They struggle to read facial expressions.
The children will be given opportunities to relate to others
and manage themselves through apps developed specifically
for autism . I.e. those which model social situations. They
will develop tolerance for others through facial expression /
emotion apps. The apps break the learning down into
manageable steps in a way not currently possible due to
sensory overload.
The technology will thus provide opportunities to develop
life long communication skills , this along with the ICT skills
being developed will support children in contributing to
society in adulthood.
• Understanding and awareness of
world around us.
•Application of above learning in variety
of contexts and real life situations i.e.
shop, farm, zoo etc.
In summary the technology will provide an engaging
context for learning and support children in overcoming
barriers to learning which their autism presents.
It will also offer opportunities to tackle aspects of their
autism such as difficulties in communication ,social
interaction and imagination.
The nature of the technology means we could continually
adapt the apps we use to best meet the needs of our
learners and the listed apps are just a sample of those
that would currently support the class in their learning
and development.
N.B We would also be looking for support in accessing App store under teachers login as it is currently blocked by web sense.
We have already purchased 2 ipod touches thus we may also encounter problems with the number of machines we can install apps from once downloaded.
Evaluations June 2011
The children are motivated and engaged when using the Ipods. The technology has been used to develop and apply skills
across the curriculum. Children have made very good progress in their number and letter formation and letter sound
awareness and have benefited greatly from the touch screen aspect of the technology. They are able to focus and engage in
such learning for significantly longer periods of time. The children also benefit from story applications where they can see
the text highlighted as it is being read, games associated with the stories have also developed comprehension skills in
some of the children. The talking applications which allow children to hear their own voice has supported pronunciation
work and developing turn taking in a conversation. Less able children have also benefited from the tap to talk app and are
in the early stages of using this to learn new phrases- The visual aspect along with a narrative allows the children to learn
phrases and supports the way we work in class to develop children’s language and communication.
Children have benefited from creative apps such as drawing pad and paint studio and enjoy uploading their own photo’s.
This has helped children explore various facial expressions as they can annotate pictures of themselves and other familiar individuals.
Apps specific to autism ( i.e. expressive and smile at me) have also supported children in their awareness of
others facial expressions and they can practice their own facial expressions by mimicking the simple graphics
demonstrating various emotions. The children can practice in a safe way without the sensory overload of
complicated and ever changing real life facial expressions.
The children has also hugely enjoyed autism specific apps such as model me going places as they can develop their
knowledge and skills in simple social situations such as going to the park/cafe etc. The apps have been successful in
breaking such experiences down into small steps and the mobility of the equipment allows it to be taken on such trips if
children need a reminder of what to do in a queue etc. This supports the children in transferring their learning to real life.
In numeracy children have engaged for significantly longer periods of time in mental agility practice and the visual aspect of
applications such as Kid maths has supported understanding of the concepts of addition and subtraction. The various
levels and rewards help children build confidence in their ability and motivate them to learn.
The technology has been hugely beneficial for all of the children and has supported the learning we carry out in class by
further engaging children and allowing them to remain on task practicing essential skills for significantly longer periods
of time. The exclusive benefit of the technology is its touch screen and accessible user interface as well as its interactivity
children can hear , see and touch what they are learning and are given constant and instant feedback.
Next steps-The project is in the early stages and will continue to be developed to support and enhance learning across the curriculum within the school. Children would benefit from using the
ipod to record their learning and achievements through videos and photographs . The flexibility
of the technology and the ever increasing apps on offer will allow us to expand and develop their use as our children’s learning and
development needs change.