Shopping at the iTunes store!

Today I got a chance to do a little shopping (something I love) to look for some apps for one of my students. It was a little frustrating to begin as the wireless did not want to cooperate with us this morning.


J______ is an 11 year old boy with William's Syndrome and Autism. He is very social and enjoys being around many of his friends. He does have quite a bit of language but has a difficult time getting out what he wants to say. To a stranger he can be difficult to understand. J_______also has a lot of echolalia and will repeat many of the phrases that he frequently hears. J_______ has had many behavior challenges that he is presently working on. He is very sensitive to noise and will get upset if someone yells or if he sees someone crying. He will often go up to them and hit or kick them even when he doesn't know them. These behaviors are diminishing lately but they still do exist. J______ has an older brother (13) who he tends to target most of his anger and frustration towards and if he gets upset he will seek him out.

J______ loves to skateboard and scooter and loves to go to the playground. He is fascinated with vacuum's, hair dryers and electric razors and will often carry them around his house. He also loves to watch you tube videos about planes and helicopters and loves to watch Teletubbies and Thomas the Tank engine. He is beginning to print some words although does not like to do this willingly, and is beginning to read very simple repetitive text. J______ also loves to do puzzles and is very good at it. He will even turn them over to the blank side and put them together upside down.

I found many apps that would benefit J______ and fit into his program as stress releasers, and assist in his programming.


ABA Flashcards - Emotions
This would be an excellent app for this student. He has a very difficult time expressing how he is feeling and it results in him showing through hitting or kicking. To work on having him label the different emotions and use them frequently the hope would be that he would express himself instead of hitting. These apps would also benefit him to help broaden his expressive language. There are many different categories that could be used.


Letter Trace
Since J______ is beginning to form letters and use pencil and paper with
support this app will support this goal. He can use his fingers to trace letters and become familiar to how each letter is formed. This app gives both auditory and visual feedback to the child.

Stalls and Spins

I did not purchase this app as it was $29.99 but I know it would be something that J______ would enjoy watching as he loves to watch videos of planes and helicopters flying. I think there is much more to the app but he would probably not benefit from it at this point. This could be a relaxing activity or reward for when he is done his work.

There were also a great app that was a timer. this timer had 4 different settings depending on the activity. it was very visual and would help the student see how much time there is left to an activity. The other app that I thought was good was a social stories app where we could pick different situations and the touch would show what would happen in that situation. This would be good for those situations that he finds most challenging to prepare him for what to expect. this app was $6.99. The possibilities are endless and I am sure there are hundreds more that would be beneficial to this student.