iAutism

Every month there are more apps for the so-called flashcards. They allow you to work with cards that consist of an image, text and an associated audio clip, usually grouped by topic (with the audio clip being just the pronunciation of the text). Seeing cards and hearing the associated sound allow you to practice oral and written language and helps group related concepts into categories.

Some of these apps can add more decks of cards by buying them or even by adding images manually and constructing new cards one by one. But Talking Flashcards goes further and provides a powerful flashcard system that allows you not only to create them but also to import them from Quizlet.com, a website containing a few million! decks for downloading free of charge which cover all kinds of subjects and languages.

On the other hand, and I prefer to say it now, you will need to dig into all these decks to find the cards that you are looking for. Also, Talking Flashcards is clearly intended for a self-sufficient student –or even an adult– and, therefore, it has not built-in reinforcement mechanisms (like music) or a particularly striking and colorful interface that make Talking Flashcards a very attractive app for children with autism. Pronunciations, moreover, are exclusively in English (although other languages will be supported in the future). But if we use other external reinforcements to the app or the student is already a youth or an adult, Talking Flashcards and the service Quizlet.com can result an interesting combination.

Decks

Just at the start, the screen shows the sets of cards (or decks) that we have installed, and we can create new ones, import or delete them and also access to the main options menu.

The import option leads to another screen where you can find decks based on keywords or authors at Quizlet.com, see the details of each deck (author, themes, number of cards and images) and import those that you want.

I would like to explain here that there are several apps for the iPad, even more for the iPhone and some for devices based on other environments (such as Android, Palm webOS and Windows Phone) that are compatible with the format of Quizlet.com decks. The number of decks is intoxicating, but you have to be aware that many do not include images, but “only” words (or words and their definitions). There are decks in about 50 languages, including Klingon (a language spoken by a race of warriors from the Star Trek television series that has plenty of fans in real life).

You simply register at Quizlet.com and you can create your own decks by writing the word associated with each card, a more detailed description or definition, and also an image that you can search directly on the Internet. Quizlet.com plans to add sound clips to their system in the near future.

Talking Flashcards also allows you to create decks from within the app, defining the text and selecting an image, but without the ability to record sound. Once created, you can even send the deck by email from the app itself. However, the recommended option is to do it directly from Quizlet.com, which will also allow us to share our decks with all the users.

The app also lets you create mathematical decks, in which the cards generate basic mathematical operations and, depending on which playback mode, the results of these operations are calculated.

Practice

After selecting a deck to use, you see the list of words listed in it. You can add and delete words, sort alphabetically or shuffle them and, most importantly, practice, something that can be done in two modes: study and play.

In the study mode, each card appears and the user can hit three buttons: one to play the associated sound (which is generated, not recorded, in English from the text) and two to mark correct or incorrect. The idea is that students see the picture and try to say it, before or after they hear the sound associated with the image, and then his/her teacher hits the appropriate button. At the end of the deck, we see a screen with the total score of correct and incorrect answers, the percentage correct and the total time spent on the exercise.

In the play mode, Talking Flashcards shows the cards one after another and plays the sound associated until it reaches the end of the deck. A single pause button allows the student to temporarily stop the playback.

In both modes, there are several settings that are selected for the entire deck, such as a spelling mode, if we view the text on the top of the image or on the “backside” of the card that is accessible through a tab, if we want to display the images, what font size the text should appear, or locking the editing of cards, etc.

The main configuration option of the app also allows you to configure many details of the operation, including choosing between a male or female voices and the rate of speech of that voice. In general, the level of app configuration is very high and includes many details.

Rating

I cannot consider Talking Flashcards as a particularly ASD-friendly app, but for youth and adults with some oral or written language, I think Talking Flashcards deserves a look at least, and also Quizlet.com. There is much potential there, but you’ll have to work a little.

Following this idea, Talking Flashcards can even be used not only as a learning tool, but also as a communication tool. You can load into the app as many decks as you like, and a youth or adult with autism can scroll through the decks and their cards and choose what to say (a card), and show the image or the text or even play the associated text-to-speech audio. The app could be more attractive, but you have a system with many decks, a website to create new ones easily, and all this for a very small price.

-Francesc Sistach & Susana Vila with the contribution of Angie Lamb

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Talking Flashcards 2.0

Web: http://www.theratechsolutions.com

Developer: TheraTech Solutions, LLC

Languages: English, spanish and italian,

Functions: Create, import and exercises with flashcards (cards that combine image, text and sound).

iPhone/iPod touch version: Yes.

iPad version: Yes.

Price: $3.99 / €2.99.

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This post is also available in: Spanish