Apps That Provide Visual Supports for Students with Severe Disabilities

This post addresses visual supports for students with severe disabilities with the use of handheld devices.

Visual supports are increasingly being provided by handheld devices such as smart phones, iPod Touch, and the iPad which use touchscreen technology.  Three examples are:

iPrompts -which runs on Apple's iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad devices.  It presents picture-based prompts that have been configured by teachers and parents to help students stay on task and transition between activities.  The app provides hundreds of stock photos and allows users to add digital pictures from their iPhone's built-in camera.

iCommunicate and First-Then- use digital photos to create picture schedules and provide the option to record messages linked to each picture.  The messages can be an audio version of the visual prompt or it can provide audio reinforcement. 

Picture Planner- is designed so that students with cognitive disabilities can construct personalized picture schedules for themselves on a computer and then use the schedules either in a printed version or on mobile devices.  The program provides line drawing symbols and text-to-speech feedback.

Resource:
Dell, A., Newton, D., & Petroff, J. (2012). Computersand Internet to Teach Math. Assistive Technology in the Classroom (). Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc.. (Original work published 2008