Author Archives: carl

Reblog: LessonPix – Amazing Resource for Special Needs Families/Educators

LessonPix Pulls Together Quality Resources for Special Needs Community!

I don’t think I’ve been quite this excited to share an amazing resource in a while. Though I’ve shared about some apps and have some additional things to share as part of our Giving Christmas campaign, LessonPix.com is a resource that virtually provides an amazing special needs resource.

Giving-Christmas-LessonPix

A quick Video Introduction to all the features of LessonPix:

 

Awesome, right? I will be bringing a full review of this site to you soon, but I think you can tell the power of this site. In case you are trying to figure out how LessonPix could help you, consider:

  • Create a Picture Schedule and Print it! 
  • Provide a membership as a gift to your child’s classroom, therapist, school for pennies a day!
  • Use over 11,000 custom images or ADD your own to create multiple materials
  • Use symbols OR pictures
  • Create social stories easily
  • Language Finder, Material Wizard and Rhyming search & More!

From the LessonPix website, this is just how easy it is to use:

To use LessonPix Just follow 3 simple steps:

  1. Find the Pictures Search or browse through the clip-art library which contains over 11,000 hand-drawn pictures or upload your own pictures. – Check out the search tools – including ‘SoundFinder”- to help you find what you need.

  2. Send Pictures to the Tray Use our LessonPix Tray to hold the pictures you would like to use to create a material. Just drag the picture to the tray or click on the “+” sign near the picture.

  3. Click “Create Materials” Follow the Materials Wizard to select the type of materials and details related to the material.

What’s really amazing is that full membership to this site is a bargain, only $3 a month! (I know! It’s crazy!)

But you can WIN a membership if you enter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Reblog: Posco AAC App for Children (and adults!) with Special Needs – Giving Christmas

Basic Posco AAC App Great for with Speech Difficulties

I will be doing a full review of this app in the future, but the developer has been kind enough to offer to give away TEN copies of this normally $10 app, so I wanted to share a few quick thoughts and let you enter to WIN!

First, What is an AAC App?

Well, it stands for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) and is generally used for individuals with speech or communication disorders. So a child with autism could use this app on his iPad to help speak for them, or an adult stroke patient could bypass frustration by doing the same.

Different but still a Great AAC App option

Posco AAC App - Giving Christmas

I just shared about another AAC App available called Talk Rocket Go, and while I won’t be sharing all the differences here, I would say that Posco is a simpler  AAC App which offers most of the basic functions, while Talk Rocket Go offers advanced features that make it more of an advanced AAC device with the iPad’s full functionality utilized. In this case the difference in cost comes down to the difference in advanced functionality.

But the AAC functionality is still a strong component of Posco and I would recommend this for a family who wants to help their child with special needs (or adult with speech limitations) as an intermediate AAC option.

My own notes to Bryan, the developer, were that the included pictures weren’t really the ones we would normally want to use with our kids to build speech. But since those images can be edited I think that is a small issue.

Okay? Good?

So what does Posco offer?

  • High contrast and large tile mode to assist users who have trouble seeing or tapping the screen.
  • An extremely high quality voice
  • Complete customization of built in words and phrases + the ability to add your own words and phrases
  • Frequent updates – I work on Posco constantly and have many more ideas planned for the future
  • Free updates to the built in library of words and phrases -(Bryan says that the next update nearly doubles the size of the library)
  • Easy to use sentence builder

Remember I’ll be offering a full review on this app soon, but I was impressed with Posco and thought it could really help some families. So I am pleased as punch to offer an awesome giveaway for TEN lucky families to have the Posco App for their own family this Christmas!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Working on a Series of Posts about Autism Stories

We are working on a series of posts titled Voices of Parents with Autistic Kids – The Truth as We Know It.  As such we need your stories.  If you could tell one story about your child with Autism, what would it be?  Names will be changed to protect your identity.

Since the tragedy in Newtown, more news stories are being posted regarding whether or not the killer had Aspergers Syndrome.  The same applies to the college campus killing in Wyoming a couple of months ago.  So we are working to dispel the negative imagery that is being associated with people who have autism.

There are even reports attempting to tie the killer to a childhood vaccine adverse reaction.

We understand that people need answers.  But we also understand that we don’t want them using our kids’ diagnosis as a scapegoat.  The killer may have had a mental illness.  He may have had Autism, but it wasn’t the autism that caused him to do this horrible, horrible thing.

These are our stories.  The first series will be published on the 21st of December 2012.

If you want to share your stories, please fill out this form and we will be in touch.

[si-contact-form form=’2′]

 

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