While making daily life convenient and easy for us in a number of ways, smart phones and mobile apps continue to make life easier for children with special needs too. Yes, smart phones are increasingly making communication and development easier for children with disabilities or learning difficulties. Listed below are 5 great iOS apps that are essential tools for children with special needs.

TalkTablet

Compatible with iPod, iPhone, iPad and iPad mini, TalkTablet is a fantastic app loaded with a full featured Alternative & Augmentative Communication (AAC) speech solution for children who have difficulties in communicating due to illness such a Down syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, Stroke, Autism, and other similar health conditions that have an impact on the individual’s ability to speak. The app has a convenient interface design that provides for simple button and page customizing, and has a length of other nifty features as well as communication symbols.

ArtiPix – Full

AlrtiPix is an incredible app that uses flashcards and matching activities to engage children with speech sound delays. Packed with fun and modern graphics, the app consists of 24 decks with 40 color-coded cards. The decks can be combined and customized according to your lesson plan, and then can be practiced in flashcard and matching activities, which is a fun way for children to practice their speech sounds. Other striking features of the app include voice recording, recorded audio, and data collection. The app allows you to score data of up to four children at a time and their data can be saved according to their name.

Injini: Child Development Game Suite

Injini is a meaningful app that is packed with a wealth of extraordinary content. It is armed with 10 feature games with 90 puzzles, over 100 eye-catching illustrations, 8 farm themed mini-games, and lots more. The app features games that are tested and designed for children with cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, and other such developmental delays. The idea is to make learning fun and challenging, and at the same time, to help children practice their language and motor skills and to enhance memory, visual processing, and spatial awareness. It consists of games that help children learn about colors and shapes, develop phonemic awareness, develop cognitive and fine motor skills, cultivate curiosity and responsibility, and much more.

Dance Party Zoo

There are many children with special needs who need a lot of practice for tasks such as balance, rhythm, and coordination, and Dance Party Zoo is a brilliant app designed to help such children! With lots of fun and physical activity involved, Dance Party Zoo is a fantastic dancing game that assists children in practicing their basic balance and motor skills. The ingenious app allows the children to pick their dance tune from the phone’s music library, and start dancing once the music starts. They can then pick their favorite zoo animal as an avatar and watch their favorite avatar replay the dance after every session! The app then gives out a colorful and easy graph which gives a feedback to the children about how well they did at keeping an even rhythm – sweet.

Dexteria – Fine Motor Skill Development

Having won a number of awards in Apps for Children with Special Needs, Dexteria is undoubtedly a phenomenal app designed to enhance motor skills through hand exercises. The app gives its users access to a set of therapeutic hand exercises to improve fine motor skills as well as handwriting readiness. The app is equipped with unique hand and finger activities that help improve control, strength, and dexterity. These exercises are to be done on a regular basis in short sessions, and to make this possible, the exercises are repeatable and engaging. What’s more, Dexteria also features an automatic tracking and reporting option which allows users to monitor progress – perfect!

Author Bio:

The author of this article, Nancy Baker, is a freelance blogger who is currently writing for Revivo Neurology Treatment Centre, which specializes in post stroke therapy in Toronto. She has a very dynamic personality and she enjoys trying new things. You can also follow her on Twitter @Nancy Baker.