Since 2011, Special iApps have been supporting children with special educational needs and worldwide. Beginning from personal experiences, we have developed our apps over the years in collaboration with educators, therapists/pathologists and parents of children with additional needs.
At Special iApps, we have a long-standing reputation for developing educational apps for children with special educational needs, including autism, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, hearing impairment and other learning disabilities.
Autism
Children with autism are often drawn to tablets and smartphones. This is often because they are fascinated by details, or find the screens easier to look at than making eye contact with other people. With careful selection of appropriate apps, we can harness this interest to help children on the spectrum learn.
Our apps are helping many autistic children around the world, and are:
- Free from visual and auditory distractions that can upset and distract
- Designed to break learning down into manageable steps
- Easily personalised, to harness the child's interests and avoid their dislikes
- Suitable for a wide range of ages and abilities
- Tested and recommended by experts in ASD from many countries
Cerebral palsy
We have made our apps easy to use for children with cerebral palsy, and other disabilities that affect motor control and ability to communicate, including brain injury, Angelman syndrome and Down syndrome.
Our apps can support children with:
- Tapping and dragging - our apps work even if your child accidentally taps more than once, or struggles to keep their finger on the screen.
- Accurate positioning – children who can't position objects precisely over another can use our apps because even a small overlap is recognised as correct.
- Speed of movement - activities in our apps are not timed, you can take as long as needed. Where there are animations, we provide settings to adjust their speed.
- Adaptive switches - most of our apps for the iPad support using Bluetooth switches, for those who are unable to control apps by touching the screen.
Down syndrome
Children with Down syndrome find iPads and other tablets very engaging. However, without the right apps they can easily become frustrated and disillusioned.
Our apps are different, and can really help your child learn:
- Developed by parents who have children with Down syndrome
- Visually clear and simple: no distracting backgrounds or noises
- Easily personalised, and designed to grow with your child
- Enable learning in small steps, with no negative rewards
- Recommended by Down syndrome organisations around the world
Dyslexia and Dyspraxia
People with Dyslexia may have difficulties with reading, writing and spelling, often having trouble with the order of letters in a word, or confusing letters like ‘b’ and ‘d’ or ‘p’ and ‘q’. Those with Dyspraxia (also called developmental co-ordination disorder, or DCD) can appear to be clumsy, owing to poor co-ordination involving gross or fine motor skills. These two conditions are quite different, but one thing they have in common is that mental ability and intellectual skills are usually unaffected.
Our apps support:
- The use of the OpenDyslexic font which was designed to be easier to read for many people with Dyslexia.
- Response to a child's intention when tapping or dragging
- Activites are not timed
- Where there are animations, we provide settings to adjust their speed
Hearing Impairment
We are parents with direct experience of hearing impairment: Bev and Colin's son William (pictured here) has hearing loss and has worn hearing aids from when he was quite young.
All our apps have:
- No distracting background sounds
- Included audio is clear and spoken slowly
- Options are included to select when audio is used
- All of our apps can be used without audio
- Several apps allow you to record your own voice
Apps for iPad with switch support
The iPad has built in support for switches. However, this is optimised for adults, and can be too difficult for children to master. Some apps for children with disabilities, including most of ours, have dedicated switch support, to empower children to use this assistive technology.
Not all of the facilities in our apps are switch-enabled. An adult who can use a touch screen will need to operate the iPad to adjust settings and add personalised content.
OpenDyslexic font support those with Dyslexia
Our Special Words and Special Stories apps both include an option to use an OpenDyslexic font (as shown above in Special Words). This font was designed to be easier to read for many people with Dyslexia.
Both apps can be used to help improve reading skills - Special Words for single words and short phrases, and Special Stories also for longer sentences. Both offer a choice of smaller or larger font sizes, and include two variants of the OpenDyslexic font (differing in the shape of the letter ‘a’). You can also use any of the standard fonts on your device.