iAutism

To improve sentence ideation, to practice their creation and to improve receptive and expressive language are the three objectives of Language Builder, the latest creation of Mobile Education Tools for people with autism or sensory processing disorders.

Functionality

Available in iPad and iPhone / iPod touch versions, the app has the typical interface in which options appear as buttons or tabs at the bottom of the screen.

The “Settings” tab, which is what initially appears, allows you to enter the student’s name, select the level of hints and purchase additional thematic packs of photos (there are 10, each with 20 images and dedicated to hobbies, pets, inside playtime, medical, places, playground, school, sports, water and winter).

In the “Play” tab, operation is always the same: a photo that depicts a scene appears and at the bottom several buttons are shown and allow you to record an audio clip (presumably with a sentence on the scene), play it, turn that clip into an audio file to preserve and move on to the next image.

If have we selected to have hints, we will also have a button to get them. There are three levels of hints: at level 1, a sentence –always in English– which lacks a few words appears; level 2 only shows the beginning of the sentence; and at level 3 nothing appears but you hear a voice that encourages you to make a sentence that includes one or two particular words.

The “Archive” tab shows all audio recordings which we have previously decided to save as files. Each one displays the associated image and can be played again, deleted or sent by email in the form of a message with the audio clip (in CAF format) and the photo (in JPG format). This option opens the door to keep recordings in which the student has special difficulties, send them to other therapists if you are working as a team or for a consultation, keep a historical record of the evolution of the student, etc.

Finally, the “Info” tab shows a short instruction manual for the app.

Rating

Obviously, Language Builder is designed for children or older people with autism and with good verbal skills and even reading skills depending on the type of hints to be used. To these people, the app will give photos quite remarkable (and, photographically speaking, very well done) and the reinforcement of recording and hear themselves. The interface design is very well done, and I would like to highlight that although not strictly required in this case the developer has bothered to make a specific version for the iPad.

With 50 photos in the base app, it is likely to want to buy additional packs of photos, potentially raising the total number of images to 250 (and the total price to $23.89 or €18.89). Also, Mobile Education Store has three other apps (Sentence Builder, Question Builder and Story Builder) with different approaches but that can help to improve language skills too.

Overall, therefore, the developer offers a good set of tools for the development of the language, but only for English. But that does not impede using the app without using the hints to record and hear our children speaking any other language.

-Francesc Sistach & Susana Vila

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Language Builder 1.1

Web: http://mobile-educationstore.com

Developer: Mobile Education Tools

Languages: English.

Functions: Help to create, record and playblack sentences based on images.

iPhone/iPod touch version: Yes.

iPad version: Yes.

Price: $3.99 / €2.99 (and 10 packs of 20 photos at $1.99 / €1.59 each one)

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This post is also available in: Spanish