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For Parents

And Carers

Special iApps was founded and developed by parents and we understand the unique challenges and momentous milestones of being a parent and raising children. All our apps can comfortably situate into family life, becoming a part of celebrations, down time and helping your child to develop and learn new skills. 

Through the appropriate use of technology, our apps provide creative ways to inspire learning. They allow you to create something WITH your child and not FOR your child, which is incredibly important to help develop their independence and confidence, as they become the ones in charge of their learning journey. 

They save you time creating individualised resources, educational flashcards and personal books as everything is created within the apps, with options to simply print and transfer content between apps. On top of this, there is an extensive range of sharing options between devices (eg. iPad to iPhone and Android to iPad), as well as being able to share content through email, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, and cloud-based services. Our apps  can grow with your child, adapting to their current stage of development and progressing with them through every stage of life.

Real World Examples

Some children need extra help to explain changes to their routines, new faces or experiences. Our apps are being used around the world in lots of ways within many homes to help children through school transitioning, home-school communication, adapting homework, explaining new phases in life, as well as creating social stories to capture special occasions, celebrations and memories

Home-school communication

Parents and schools are on the same team. Being open and honest allows both parties to share their ideas and create better opportunities for the child. Let your child's teacher know if things are different at home as it could be affecting their behaviour or work within the classroom. Using our app Special Stories can provide your child’s teachers with a better understanding of their pupil's needs and requirements so they are better equipped to meet them. Our apps have a variety of ways to securely transfer content, eg from Android phone at home to an iPad at school, which can help to support you developing effective relationships and lines of communication

Create a visual diary of their home life: Parents can create stories of their child's home life, their likes and dislikes, and who is in their family. This gives their school teachers a way to understand them better and know more about their life. Likewise, ask you child’s teacher or teaching assistant to create a social story of their day or week, allowing you an in sight into their school life, how they are progressing at regular intervals 

For children with Special Educational Needs, Special Stories is a tool for Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCP). Children can create their own story about their lives, family, likes, hobbies and aspirations. It’s a photo book of what they’ve been doing and how they’ve progressed as well as regular show and tell.  Speech therapists use the apps to support communication, encourage conversations and speech development. Educators to develop reading skills, build vocabulary. Children can use our apps and you can observe what they know despite poor speech, poor fine motor skills and poor handwriting skills. Through this observational assessment, you can then set appropriate targets and class work, and record their outcomes. 

 

Homework

With Special Words and Special Stories, you can adapt your child’s homework into the apps to provide them with a new way of learning more suitable to their abilities.  Take photographs of things they need to learn about and create a word list with text and audio, or have your child’s teacher send you a word list they have created. Perhaps they are learning about the Romans or seasons, or are targeting specific areas in their maths and science lessons.  

We have a growing collection of free curriculum resources for you to download which can help support your child with their homework and education. Find out more about the resources we offer here.

Birthdays

Birthdays should be a time to celebrate with a party but for some children, dealing with new situations and events can be incredibly overwhelming. They can become hypersensitive and uncomfortable with changes to their routine. With our apps, particularly Special Words and Special Stories, you can plan and prepare well in advance for events. By creating a social story from your own photographs of celebrations, combined with your words and voice, children can slowly become familiarised with what is ahead of them. Special Stories is an amazing tool for quick creating and sharing stories as an aid for reinforcing planned events and reminiscing memories. Creating your own word lists can open up discussions further, allowing you to focus on key areas of any part, the bake, balloons, party food, gifts and the many faces that will be sharing the day with you. This preparation can lower a child’s anxiety and they feel confident about a change in their routine or a new experience, as 

Toilet Training

Special Stories and Special Words focus on communication, understanding and learning, three areas that are a big part of being able to toilet train with success. Children need to learn a whole new set of skills that are unfamiliar to them. They need to communicate their needs be telling you they need to go while understanding the necessary steps to using the toilet. These two apps are fantastic tools to help children to become familiar with the images and words associated with toilet training. You can use your own images to create a new profile in Special Words and use Special Stories to put together a little sequence of the stages for using the toilet: pants down, toilet time, wipe, pants up, wash hands, towel dry etc… Toilet training takes time and patience but by preparing your child for this change by using our apps, things will hopefully run that little bit more smoothly.