Two essential apps for children with autism
Internet has changed our lives. Today many mobile applications make our lives easier. On many occasions we have highlighted 'apps' to play with our children while we learn, but there are also specific tools for people with some kind of difficulty.
This is the case of autistic children. Also for them there are different applications that not only entertain them, but they do them well. This is the case of the applications created by the Planeta Imaginario foundation that we present in this article.
Imaginary Planet Foundation
Imaginary Planet is a foundation of Barcelona that is dedicated to assist children with generalized developmental disorder, among which is autism. Within his work, he has realized how the new technologies they are integrated into our day-to-day life, and they have proposed to take advantage of it by creating two specific applications for children with this kind of problems.
His work is also closely linked to the awareness of the true meaning of autism. As they explain, the Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD), Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and Autism they are "general terms for a broad and complex set of alterations in development". "These alterations are characterized, at different levels, by difficulties in social interaction, in verbal and non-verbal communication and in the existence of repetitive behaviors," he explains.
When explaining briefly what is autism and what are its common features with other developmental disorders, from this foundation point out that in many occasions they are usually observed problems in the language, the cognitive processing, the expression of emotions, etc., which makes the type of applications such as those presented below very useful.
"ASDs have a neurological basis, which means that they affect brain function, but how ASDs affect each person and their Symptomatic severity, is highly varied and individualized to each person, "they remind, while insisting on qualifying that It is "very difficult" to generalize about the symptoms of these children, which sometimes makes early diagnosis difficult.
iSequences and the work of four areas
iSecuencias is a learning application for children based on 100 sequences represented by six characters with which four general areas are worked on:
- Habits of autonomy, how to wash hands and teeth, get dressed or go to sleep.
- Events or activities playful like going to the beach, to the movies or doing sports.
- Situations everyday how to fall, get on the bus, go to the doctor, buy the bread or get wet with the rain.
- Emotions like joy, sadness, surprise or fear that appear as a consequence of what happened.
iSequences contributes to the improvement of social skills and the recognition of emotions; and it can be used in both the educational and family settings. iSequences is a useful application as a complement educational for children in general, although its content is specially designed for those with autism.
AbaPlanet and the vocabulary
The second of its applications is specially designed for tablets. "It is an advanced and extensible learning platform based on ABA. AbaPlanet allows to perform receptive language and pairing exercises to learn 350 words of the basic vocabulary of a child or adolescent, "they explain on their own website, where they show what each of their interesting and useful creations consists of.
"AbaPlanet is based on applied behavior analysis (ABA or Applied Behavior Analysis), Well-known and proven method for people with special needs such as autism and with delays in learning in general, and also suitable for training in general, "they explain.
With this objective, this platform includes an expert system that adapts to the level of the child, so that when you achieve the objectives you have reward activities through a system that records your progress. "With this combination, AbaPlanet is the first app that integrates everything necessary to carry out ABA-based learning sessions in a complete and autonomous way," they conclude from this foundation.
Angela R. Bonachera
