iPad as a Communication Device

If your household owns and iPad, or if your child uses one in school, you probably already know how well our kiddos can manipulate and utilize this technology.  It can be used to play games, learn to trace your letters, read, count and even speak for you.   There are communication apps you can buy that have more flexibility and are less expensive than some of the more traditional communication devices.  It is even more impressive when your child uses his iPad to communicate with you when you don't have a communication app installed on your device.

Let me explain.

Full day kindergarten has been rough.  Yesterday was particularly rough and Ben had some aggressive behaviors that earned him a great deal of time out, emails to Mom from the Special Ed director, and his teacher, and a phone call from both the school secretary and finally the Principal.

He had a BAD day.

This behavior is somewhat out of character for him and generally only happens when he is on the verge of getting sick.   He also struggles with constipation at times and that can make him cranky too.  So yesterday we gave him some Miralax before he went to school.  He also had a messed up routine due to school pictures being yesterday, which probably did not help his behavior much either.

 I learned at one of the conference that I attended, that when children (and adults) are in pain or afraid, their language skills decrease by an average of 2 years.  I think this explains why when he hurts or does not feel good, he just clings to me and signs hurt and won't do much else.   He did answer yes once yesterday when I asked if he had an owie, but would not tell me more. 

He got off the bus last night and seemed pretty good.  His Miralax worked while he was at school and he looked like he was feeling fine and happily played referee in the basement with his whistle.  We also had a talk about how we don't push, hit or scratch and he lost his popsicle after school treat and TV privilege.

At 6 we had to leave to pick up brothers from Football practice.  Ben fell asleep pretty quickly once we got in the car.  When we got home I put Ben on the sofa to continue sleeping for just a bit and started getting supper for the big boys.  At 8 after trying for over a 1/2 hour we finally got Ben up for supper. 
He ate 3 grapes and drank a couple sips of apple juice.  Then he climbed on my lap and said, "Night, Night please".  He NEVER asks to go to bed. 

This morning he was up as soon as Randy turned on a light at 6 am.  After a trip to the bathroom he snuggled in with me for a bit.  Soon he was asking for the iPad.  I gave it to him and tried to catch a few more ZZZZs.  My alarm went off and I hit the snooze a few times.  Ben was playing with a flashcard game that speaks 2 words called Learn to Talk First Words .   He had been repeating one card over and over again for at least a couple minutes, and was shaking me each time he played it, but I was zoning out.  Finally he said, "Mom Potty!"knowing that would get me up (because Mom does not like accidents in her bed). So I headed toward the bathroom while he headed for the kitchen.  I said, "Ben, don't you have to go potty?"  He turned to his iPad and tapped the flash card again.  It said, "want food".

Mom finally got it.

But now I am torn.  He is perfectly capable of saying I want food, time to eat, I hungry, breakfast please, or I want pancakes, but instead chose to tell me by using the iPad.   On the one side I am so impressed that he was able to find a way to tell me what he wanted, since we don't really have a communication app on the iPad.  But on the other side, why didn't he just tell me?   Maybe he did and I was just too tired to internalize what he said.  Or maybe he does not feel good or is in pain.  He has been on a very low dose of Thyroid meds for about a month.  Maybe they are causing issues?   He has been specifically acting different since Sunday and maybe he is coming down with something?  I wish he could tell me what is going on.

But whatever the cause, that was some great problem solving skills buddy!

Can't Fool This Kid

One of the things I love about the iPad is that it helps kids get motivated to learn.  It is also a ton of fun and slightly addictive  I have read more books on my Kindle app this year alone than I read in the last 10 years combined.

The games can be addictive too.

My personal favorite is Bejeweled Blitz.

 Ben's favorite is Tiger Woods Golf.

The problem with Ben's favorite, is that it happens to be his Dad's game.  The way these games work, you do tournaments to increase your average and skill, etc.  Randy had his player in pretty good shape.

Until Ben found the game that was hidden in the folder.

He was sitting quietly in the stroller at one of his brother's many games completely engrossed in the iPad.  I asked him a couple times what he was playing.   I finally got up and looked.  Randy's  player was at 70 over par.  Not good when you have your player just where you want them.

So they created a player just for Ben.

 You see he does not care if he is in first or last.  He just wants to play.   I just love that about him.  Every time the big boys try to get him to change how he doing something so he can win, I remind them too.

Ben just wants to play.  He is having fun.  Let him have fun.

But back to the iPad......Every now and then I move the golf game on the iPad, so that Ben will spend more time with his learning apps, and less time playing golf.

This morning was one of those days.

After burying the golf game deep in one of my photo app folders, I gave the iPad back to Ben.

Next thing I hear is "Looks like you are going to need a pitching wedge from this distance".  The little stinker found it, in less than 10 minutes.  Looks like I need to employ a more devious tactic next time. 

But part of me is proud of him.  What a great problem solving skill this little game of ours has taught him. There are so many great things he learns from the iPad, like matching, math, reading, and having fun.   In general the iPad has been nothing but a wonderful tool for Ben.

Ben's Favorite Apps

We got our iPad at Christmas. In the months since, Ben has figured out exactly how to operate it. We keep it locked to regulate access for his older brothers. He knows when it is locked and will normally just hit the icon so he can look at the pictures stored on the iPad. (It is great to know I can use the iPad as a digital photo frame and still keep the iPad locked.) He can get into and out of apps with no difficulty and regularly turns the volume up (all the way). His apps are stored in folders- Books, Speech, Sign Language, ABC’s, 123’s, Words, Flash Cards, Potty, Social Stories and Games.
The following is a list of apps that Ben’s chooses regularly when given free time to play on the iPad:

Books

                           This Little Light of Mine: Has a regular and coloring mode where he     can color the picture while the music plays and the words are highlighted. 

Love books that highlight the words. Also good music therapy.

Five Monkeys: New app this week but quickly becoming a favorite. This app teaches the concept of Stop and Go. Signing with words highlighted helps reading and 3 choices of song style helps with music therapy.

Bo’s Bed Time Story: Some of it is a little bit hard for him. The object is to help Bo the giraffe get ready for bed by sorting toys, picking out pajamas, taking a bath and so forth. Good for OT for manipulating objects, and early learning stills of matching, sorting, etc.





Speech

InstaPal: Take any photo, and add an animated mouth so that the photo “talks” to you.

Talking Super Car : Talking Car shaped like Lightning McQueen. In addition to him repeating your words, the car can change colors and drive. Very good for kids who like cars.





Signing

Signing Time Flash Cards: One side shows the words, or tap the picture to get a demonstration of the sign. Great for reading or reinforcing signs.

ASL Dictionary: Great for me to use to look up signs I don’t know to use in our daily routine. 4,800 video signs in this app. Ben loves singing to songs on the radio, and we add signs whenever we can to make the songs more fun.








123’s

Counting Bear : Great for working on 1 to 1 correspondence. It is a very customizable app that lets you add your own pictures of things to count and your voice to congratulate them. Great errorless learning app.

Count123: Also great for 1 to 1 correspondence. On this one the items that you count do something. For instance, you bounce the basketballs, fly kites, or find the hidden dinosaur.





Games

Shape Galaxy: Great online shape sorter. Grab and drag the shapes into the correct area on the page. Levels get harder as you go.

Match Frog: Shoot a rocket then identify the color from a choice of 3.






Words

Touch & Say: A colorful happy face sings songs, makes silly noises, and teaches colors.

Sentence Maker: Drag the words of 2 to 3 words sentences into the correct spot to make a sentence.





Flash Cards

Healthy Habits: Choose the healthy answer to a verbal question out of 4 pictures.






Potty

Potty Time: Free app with in app song purchases. Has a reward chart, and a couple songs free, to help teach the potty process.

Pull-Ups iGo Potty: Free App from Pull Ups. Has a song and rewards system also. Games unlocked after a few successful potty attempts.






Social Stories:

Going Places: Has short videos show clips of kids modeling good behavior while going out in public. Covers 6 different scenarios.






Like I said these are the apps Ben chooses to go to. Most are good solid teaching apps, so I rarely feel the need to direct him to different apps.  http://freeappalert.com/ is a great place for getting apps that normally have a fee that were just reduced to be free. The apps are updated around noon our time. Some are free for an hour, some for a day, and some for a week. I stalked this site long before we had an iPad and had accumulated around 350 apps by the time we got it. Some apps were not as good as I thought they would be, so I just deleted them.
Ben does have one guilty pleasure app that he picked up from watching his big brothers. Temple Run is game where mutant monkeys chase a person around some temple ruins. Mostly he likes to crash the person or make them fall off the ledge. I guess we all need to have a little fun every now and then.

I am very glad we got the iPad.  Ben went from watching and listening the songs to singing along to almost every word in less than 4 months.  It has been a great learning tool for him.  He is motivated to learn when using it, becase he gets to learn by playing games.  What better way to learn is there?