Assistive Technology for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

      Autism, or medically known and identified as Autism Spectrum Disorder, is a disorder usually identified in the Early Childhood years due to the students lack of communication, distance in terms of interaction with others and in some cases activities, and lack of eye contact and restlessness. Students with ASD(Autism Spectrum Disorder) usually have a hard time not only communicating with their peers, adults, teachers and family, but also expressing their feelings, needs and wants. Students will usually seem apprehensive when it comes to interaction with others and will usually respond to such apprehensions with moving of the body, such as arm twitching/swinging, twiddling their thumbs, tapping their fingers, etc. I personally know so many children and young adults that I have had the pleasure of working with and knowing that have ASD and they are so inspiring and unique. I'm sure that they have gone through some very hard times due to their struggles with their learning differences, but, thanks to the advancements in technology, there are new ways for these students to communicate with others through apps and different softwares specifically designed to fit their needs. This technology is known as Assistive Technology. To help with a child's language development, there are two technologies that I researched that found to be very helpful and those are Tobii and the Grace App.

      Tobii, a software that gives children many different, yet appropriate, language representations for certain situations and needs that those children will need. Tobii comes in many different forms, accommodating each child's needs and strengths. Tobii Sono Flex is for all circumstances where communication aide is needed. Tobii Sono Key is to help the child with keyboards and writing what the child wishes to communicate. LiterAACy is to help the child learn vocabulary and associate such vocabulary with preset images. Tobii Sono Lexis also aides in learning vocabulary through images. The last Tobii set is called Tobii Sono Primo aides in the childs communication through a series of stories, visuals, games, etc.

     The Grace App was developed by Steve Troughton-Smith and boasts the artwork of Mary Maroney. This app provides picture vocabularies of Food items, 'Things I Like', Places, Colors, Sizes and Shapes on iPhone/iPad or an iPod Touch and can also use pictures taken by the student that he/she associates a certain thing with. This app gives children with autism the power, confidence and connivence of the communicating anywhere, anytime with anyone, since it is 100% potable. This app encourages vocalizing and communicating, but it is not required by the child.

      As for the future of Assistive Technology for children with ASD, I personally predict there will eventually be more devices and apps that actively encourage the use of vocalization and eye contact when communicating. As well as the innovation of something that helps ease nerves and lower stress levels in situations where children with autism struggle with. There are already so many devices and advances technology wise for children with ASD, and in saying that it is very difficult to see where they will go next with such technology. All I can say is, whatever someone comes up with to help these wonderful children, it will be greatly appreciated and used.

References:

Tobii Tech: http://www.autismconsortium.org/outbound.php?out=http://asdinfo.org/P7WVI1&title=Tobii

The Grace App: http://www.autismconsortium.org/outbound.php?out=http://asdinfo.org/QJcMLq&title=Grace

Autism Spectrum Disorder: http://www.autismconsortium.org/blog/detail/technology-and-autism-whats-available-and-what-works

IDEA act: http://nichcy.org/wp-content/uploads/docs/gr3.pdf