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A new day has arrived for dyslexic and LD students where apps have been created to support the challenges that they have on a daily basis in school. Here is the "Top Ten apps" (with links to iTunes) for them to get started.
MyScript Calculator, a free app for any device, that can level the playing field in math!
iReadWrite makes reading easier and ensures accurate writing as you use your iPad for school, work, or leisure.
Posted on February 18, 2013 by Thomas Armstrong
"The rapid pace of new educational technologies has made it so that students with special needs can accomplish many things in the classroom that were difficult or even impossible for them only a few years ago. The following list contains some of the best apps I’ve seen for kids with neurodiversities in communication, reading, sociability, attention, and behavior."
SpeechBox App for iOS. Designed for use with Children with Apraxia of Speech, Autism, Down's Syndrome, and other Speech Language Difficulties.
Check out this collection of quality apps designed to help young children develop their skill at handwriting, sentence construction, or planning and drafting a story.
List of applications for people with autism or other special needs for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch devices
Bookshare support now includes organizational accounts
- Improved VoiceOver support for the blind
- Can start speaking text from a chapter, bookmark, or highlight
- Can start speaking from a text search result Listen to PDF and Word documents, articles, eBooks and Web pages with text-to-speech. Integration with Dropbox, Pocket, Instapaper, Bookshare, and Gutenberg. Silky smooth synchronized highlighting and autoscrolling. Rock-solid stability. 55 amazing voices in 20 languages available.
"Meaghan Roper, a junior at Burlington High School, shares a similar story with the iPad. When Meaghan was six years old, she was diagnosed with a visual impairment. In the eighth grade, she started to notice a decline in her vision. She sought out surgery to repair or delay her vision decline, and while successful, the procedure did not hold for very long. A Transformative Experience Meaghan recalls her first moments with the iPad and how she and her liaison discovered the variety of new opportunities that this one device presented. One of the first things she used was the ability to invert the colors of the screen. The iPad gives users the opportunity to read predominantly black text on a lighter screen, or to invert the colors and overlay white text on a black screen. This one feature, Meaghan recalls, was "transformative" in her learning of what the iPad could offer her educational experience. Apps for Every Need In Meaghan's day-to-day operation of the iPad, she uses several applications to manage her content. It doesn't take her too many apps to get through her school day. She's thankful that, along with transitioning to the iPad, Burlington also married the Google Apps for Education suite with this device. She finds ease in accessing Google Docs from multiple devices and knowing that her work will always be safe, secure and not dependent on a machine's functionality." Read more about how Meaghan uses apps to support her learning!
"TextGrabber + Translator turns your iPhone into a multifunctional mobile scanner with translation capability." An inexpensive app that can actually turn an iPhone and IPad into a scanner. You simply take a picture of a document with your device and the app uses Optical Character Recognition to create an editable text file. Just take a picture of the text, and you can immediately edit it or translate, share via e-mail and SMS, or post directly to your account at on Facebook, Twitter and Evernote. Not only that, but it can translate documents from more than 40 different languages. This app can also be very useful for anyone who prefers or needs to read (and manipulate) digital text documents rather than print documents. One more app that is leveling the playing field!
If you have a learner that struggles to write, this is the app that can stir the imagination and help them be creative with a Wow! Book Creator for iPad • Choose from portrait, landscape or square book sizes. • Add pictures from the Photos app; grab them from the web; move, resize and rotate them with your fingers. • Edit text using the onscreen keyboard; apply rich formatting • iPad's fonts - over 50 to use. • Import video and music, and record speech within the app. Here is what an Pre K-12 Assistive Technology Specialist said about this app: "My students loved this app. They felt it was so easy to use, that they could open it for the first time and know intuitively what to do. Having it then go to iBooks and create an individual bookshelf was fantastic."
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English with Mr. Borman - A place to reflect and share.
What is iSolveIt? iSolveIt is a mobile digital learning environment that supports the development of logical thinking and reasoning skills, which are essential competencies of algebra and mathematics in general. The environment includes a collection of tablet-based puzzles that have been designed using the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL).
Speech Therapy Apps - articulation, language and auditory processing disorder apps.
"Clicker Docs app for iPad, developed by Crick Software, is a new iOS app that provides differentiated writing support for struggling writers. As one of Crick's two new apps, Clicker Docs provides text only word banks and word prediction options offering support for primary aged writers in this Docs app. Clicker Sentences app provides a simpler picture based writing environment for emergent writers."
"Nowadays teachers and students have a variety of ways to show what they know and to express themselves. These web and iPad apps can turn students into teachers and teachers into super-teachers! Furthermore, most of the apps listed in the infographic are free of charge."
Via John Evans
While I believe that most of language development should be encouraged through active unstructured play, technology is making a mark with this young set of clients. The good news is, ipads can offer an easy way for parents to encourage speech and language skills in toddlers with communication delays.--- By Jenna Rayburn, MA, CCC-SLP
12 Best Special Needs Apps of 2012 - Special Education
At the following list you will find 19 Free Text to Speech tools that your students' will appreciate. Some of them you have to install and some you will install on your browser. The most awesome about these tools is that are FREE!
This powerful post from D. Mourlam describes the apps that can not only enhance lessons so they are universally-designed but can also be used by learners to express what they know. He provides a description of each app and what the UDL Connections are with each app. > Videolicious and Flexible Methods of Expression and Apprenticeship > iMovie and Flexible Methods of Presentation > Skitch and Flexible Methods of Expression and Apprenticeship > Evernote and Flexible Methods of Expression and Apprenticeship > Twitter and Flexible Options for Engagement > Facebook and Flexible Options for Engagement > Prezi Viewer and Flexible Methods for Presentation > VoiceThread and Flexible Methods of Expression and Apprenticeship > Skype and Flexible Options for Engagement > Screen Chomp and Flexible Methods of Expression and Apprenticeship
Each app for Grades 1-5 are comprehensive with virtually infinite number of questions covering wide range of topics. All the content is aligned to common core standards. These apps are used to differentiate math instruction and assigned practice. What you may like so much about this app is the variety of concepts that you are able to individualize. For example, if a student needs additional work on the concept of time, then you can setup the app to only give questions related to time. Questions first appear simple, but then become more challenging as questions are answered correctly. If you prefer, Splash Math will send you a weekly update indicating the progress of each student.
On November 7th, Paul Hamilton will be presenting an ISTE Webinar on iPad apps that can be used by learners of all ages to overcome barriers to reading and writing. "Some of the accessibility features built into iOS 5 will also be covered. Research has established that each individual learns uniquely, so these tools can be used to great effect with a wide range of learners, not just those identified with specific “learning disabilities”. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) will serve as the pedagogical framework for the presentation. Almost all of the apps to be shared are either free or inexpensive. In addition to apps that offer effective text-to-speech and multiple options for text-input, the presentation will explore multimedia apps that give learners alternative ways of showing what they know. Some of the apps to be presented were shared by the presenter in a Feb. 21, 2012 blog post, 10 Apps for Learners Who Struggle with Reading and/or Writing."
"Get Write & Say - The most innovative text editor with Text to Speech, Dropbox, Markdown & Translator + Export and mail your documents as MP3 voice files + 52 Voices + 3D Avatar +Translator 60 languages - Write&Say distraction-free text editor, save your documents in plain text, HTML and Markdown formats. Preview your documents in a embedded web view. - Compatible with voice dictation feature in iPhone 4S and the new iPad 3 . Now you can dictate and use your voice in the text editor view instead of typing with keyboard. - Export documents in text or PDF format. Export via Dropbox, email, Evernote, Tumblr, Twitter and iTunes File Sharing. - Import documents from other Apps like Dropbox, Evernote, Mail, etc. with the "Open In" iOS feature - Translate any text from practically any language to Italian, Spanish, French, German, Chinese, etc. More than 60 languages"
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