iAutism

Good news! The number of available iPad apps for people with autism is increasing continuously. And, after reviewing See.Touch.Learn., by Brain Parade, I can also confirm that these apps are becoming more and more mature.

The iPad, with its larger screen compared to the one present in an iPhone or an iPod touch, can be used for a new myriad of things. And, therefore, the first generation of iPhone apps designed to practice with basic exercises of receptive language, matching, categorization, etc. is overcome now by apps like See.Touch.Learn., designed for the iPad.

In short, See.Touch.Learn. is a platform for the design and execution of image-based exercises, so typical in ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) programs, that surpasses anything available so far for the iPad in this field.

Fremium

See.Touch.Learn. follows the so called fremium model (“free” + “premium”): The application is free and 100% operational, but includes only a single library with 32 pictures and 6 lessons (each one with a sequence of exercises). You can create as many lessons and exercises as you want, but adding pictures requires you buying picture packs (from within the same app).

At the time of this writing, there are two packs of letters and numbers (at $0.99), and five other packs of pets, vegetables, fruits, food and body parts (at $4.99). Each one includes between 35 and 77 pictures, usually with three different pictures of each concept. Thus, in the pack of letters, you’ll find 26 uppercase letters, 26 lowercase letters and another 26 colored pieces of wood representing the same letters.

Brain Parade says that it will launch new packs from now on –clothing, vehicles, and shapes and colors will be available soon-, and in fact it encourages the users to ask for specific packs to be added. Moreover, it delivers a free pack to users who write a review on iTunes.

Each pack also includes six lessons labeled with three levels of difficulty: basic, intermediate and advanced.

Lessons and exercises

ABA programs largely use picture cards as a support for learning, using them for activities such as matching, generalization, categorization, receptive and expressive language, etc., usually by executing sequences of basic exercises.

See.Touch.Learn. adopts this model, designating the “lessons” as sequences of “exercises”, in each of which it presents a set of cards to the student so he/she can select one or more than one.

So, for example, a lesson about letters composed of 10 exercises can start with an exercise that shows a single card with the letter “A”. A text on the top of the screen indicates that you have to touch the letter “A”, and a small speaker button allows you to play the same message –using a very “computerized” voice.

You must touch the letter “A” –making a bell to ring– and move on to the next screen/exercise by pressing the “Next” button. Then, two letters will be shown, “A” and “D”, and the app will ask you again to touch the “A”. If you touch the “D”, a failure sound will be played, and the “D” picture will shake. If you touch the “A”, the bell will ring again and the “A” picture will get bigger.

Some exercises after, you’ll see an exercise showing only a picture showing a “B”. Some more, and you’ll see an exercise showing “A” and “B” letters accompanied by other pictures that perhaps you’ve never worked with. You’ll be asked to choose one of them (in the image below, the “B”).

By doing this, you’ll finish the lesson, which is composed of a predetermined set of exercises. You’ll hear a crowd crying out and after that a screen showing the exercise statistics will appear.

Many lessons

The examples that come with each pack of pictures allow you to explore the many possibilities of the app. For example, in the activities listed as intermediate, more objects appear simultaneously, they can appear more than once in the same screen or the app can ask the student to select more than one in the same exercise. In case of repetition, the student can be asked to touch more than one (ie, all the “1″).

And in “advanced” lessons, more complicated concepts can be involved, such as choosing between two pictures of fruits which one shows less or more pieces.

Exercises such as working with numbers in the form of cards with black spots, locating the first letter of a word, practicing the concepts of right and left or basic adding exercises are also possible.

Adding lessons

See.Touch.Learn. has a good card-based exercise engine, but equally attractive is its lessons editor. Beyond the preloaded lessons, the educator, therapist or adult can easily create new lessons consisting of a sequence of exercises to be defined. This option is available from the lessons selection screen, where you can also duplicate an existing one for later editing, or even send it via email. (What is really sent is the list of statements for each exercise, making a good guideline for the “teacher”).

Just by naming a new lesson you can begin to build it, something that can be accomplished by defining one by one the exercises that comprise the lesson using an exercise editor.

For example, you can define a first exercise in which only a red apple is displayed and a second one with a green apple. To do so, in each case you have to navigate through the picture libraries and select those that you want to incorporate. Each exercise can display between 1 and 6 cards.

In the next exercise you may want to show two apples, one green and one red, and some bananas, so that the student must select all the apples. To do this, you add the three pictures and mark the two apples as the correct answers (represented by a green “tick”).

Moreover, you have to define the question that will appear to the student by selecting a phrase beginning (optional) and writing the second part of it. In the example, it is “Touch the apples”.

When the student runs this exercise, he/she will have to touch both apples to finish correctly that exercise.

This way, you can define many exercises, and you can also delete and rearrange them within the lesson. In the picture below, by adding two apples –one green and one red– and two other pieces of fruit –again, one green and one red–, you can create a double discrimination exercise.

Going further, you could use pictures of numbers and define an exercise as “Touch the sum of 1 and 3″, being the picture of “4″ the right answer, for example.

Options and help

See.Touch.Learn. has a short integrated help and the ability to enable an overlay help mode that visually looks very good but perhaps contribute very little. However, in the Brain Parade website there are some videos on how to use the app. (Although, I hope that if you have read this post up to here you will not need them ).

There are also some options to set for determining whether the student will see or not the text on the top of the screen (if not, the list of exercises sent via email becomes invaluable), whether or not it will show the audio button, if the application will play a sound when finishing a lesson, and perhaps most importantly, whether to move from one exercise to another you’ll see the “Next” and “Back” buttons. Otherwise, you’ll have to move two fingers up to display the buttons or to the right to move directly to the next exercise.

Rating

As I said at the beginning of this post, in my opinion, See.Touch.Learn. is a clear advance in the “therapy apps” field, going further that all I’ve seen so far. Graphically, the application is very appealing and very well designed, and its power and flexibility are indisputable. It can be a useful complement to ABA or other learning programs for children with autism or other development disorders.

Of course, designing lessons will take time for the adult, but this also happens when using paper cards. Moreover, the need of buttons to move to the next exercise and other aspects (the button to activate the audio is too small for my taste, for example) implies that an adult has to be besides the student when practicing the exercises. This is not a shortage of the app, which is designed to be used this way.

There are also some details that remembers me that this is a 1.0 version. Moving two fingers up or right when there is no buttons is not explained in the help and it is not so intuitive, although it is useful to prevent accidentally screen changes. After using the app for some days, I can think of some ideas for improvement, as an automatic mode that brings the next exercise after finishing one, but nothing impedes using See.Touch.Learn. as a fully operational app right “out of the box”.

For non native English speakers, the only downside is that the voice synthesizer reads only in English. But the app can still be useful if there is an adult besides the student asking the pertinent questions in their native language. And, anyway, Brain Parade assures that in a few weeks it will deliver a new version that allows the user to record an audio clip with the question of each exercise, making it a more compelling app and specially overcoming the language barrier. This new version will also include over 30 different sounds to assign to right and wrong answers.

See.Touch.Learn is free. To use it seriously you’ll need to buy some picture libraries, but not to test it. I think that it is a remarkable app, so my main recommendation is that if your child or your students are in the long-learning phase that involves using cards, this app is definitively worth to download and try.

-Francesc Sistach

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See.Touch.Learn 1.0

Web: http://www.brainparade.com/

Developer: Brain Parade LLC

Languages: English.

Functions: Creating and executing cards-based exercises (for ABA programs).

iPhone/iPod touch version: No.

iPad version: Yes.

Price: Free, with packs of cards for $0.99 or $4.99 / €0.79 or €3.99.

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This post is also available in: Spanish