Reach for the APPS aims to get iPads for students with autism into schools

A new non-profit organization called Reach for the APPS launched recently. Their aim is to partner with individuals and corporations to increase access to iPads in schools across the country for use with students on the autism spectrum. The organization was founded by the family of a child with autism whose language and communicative skills have improved from using the iPad.

Both schools and parents can fill out a grant request form on their site requesting iPads for their children and students to use. Individuals and corporations can contribute with either a cash donation or by sending in an old iPad. This sounds like an interesting idea! Let us know if you’ve participated and how the experience was.

What Goes Together? App Giveaway Sweepstakes

Win a free copy of our App: What Goes Together?

We’ll be giving away 10 free copies of our App as part of our month of promotions in honor of Autism Awareness Month.

 Enter our Sweepstakes by visiting https://promoshq.wildfireapp.com/website/6/contests/197624

Winners will be chosen at random on April 6, 2012 at 11:59 pm EST. Winners will be notified by email on Monday, April 9.

What Goes Together? is an interactive game develops language, discrimination, and reasoning skills in young learners. Clear,  colorful images of everyday objects promote an understanding of functions and the relationships between items that children encounter on a daily basis. With built-in reinforcement and error correction, this game provides a solid foundation in building critical expressive and receptive language skills.

 

 

 

 

 

New App for Teaching Language to Children with Autism is Now Available!

 New York, NY, March 5, 2012 – Different Roads to Learning, Inc., a global retailer of educational products for children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and other developmental disabilities, today announced the launch of Tell Me About It! Learning Language by Receptive Function, Feature & Category, an iPhone/iPad app for developing early language skills.

This app uses Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), a systematic teaching approach that involves breaking down skills into small, easy-to-learn steps. ABA is the only evidence-based effective intervention treatment for Autism endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the United States Surgeon General.  The Tell Me About It! App is now available for $9.99 at itunes.

“A new wave of educational apps has been on the rise since the iPad first launched; now, they are more efficient and visually stimulating than ever. These apps are especially pertinent in the early education of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. We are pleased to develop the Tell Me About It! App, which covers the basic foundations of language for children diagnosed with Autism. Our Tell Me About It! App for the iPhone and iPad allows parents and professionals to apply ABA in any setting,” said Julie Azuma, CEO of Different Roads to Learning, Inc., which she founded in 1995 after her daughter was diagnosed with Autism.

“Mimicking an actual one-on-one instructional session with a therapist, the app utilizes Discrete Trial Teaching, a method of teaching students with Autism and other language or developmental delays by breaking skills into the smallest possible steps, teaching each step intensively until its mastered, providing repetition, prompting incorrect responses, and using positive reinforcement. It’s like having a personal tutor at your fingertips,” said Abigail Schlaifer, VP Sales & Marketing.  She added, “Teachers, parents, and psychologists can delve into the Teacher’s Console to control the difficulty settings for each student, and will appreciate the Student Report Card, which displays data for each student with an option to email results.”

About the Development of the Tell Me About It! App

The concept for this app was developed by Stacy Asay, LMSW, and Abigail Schlaifer for Different Roads to Learning and created by Infusion, which combines expert software engineering with appealing user experiences.

Different Roads to Learning was one of ten small businesses selected for the CEO-UBS Small Business Advisory Program, a philanthropic partnership between UBS Wealth Management Americas and the William J. Clinton Foundation. As a participant in the Program’s New York Metro Area pilot, Different Roads to Learning received six months of pro-bono strategic financial and business advice from a UBS Financial Advisor and a dedicated client. The app is a product of this mentorship program. For more information, visit itunes.

Here are the reviews on the app:

 

About Different Roads to Learning

Founded 17 years ago by the mother of a child diagnosed with Autism, Different Roads to Learning understands and embraces the unique needs of every child on the spectrum and strives to enable parents and professionals to help children grow to their full potential by offering over 500 of the most progressive and carefully researched quality products in support of the Autism Community. Visit www.difflearn.com. Read our blog.  Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

For more information, please contact:

Product: Abigail Schlaifer, (212) 604-9637 or abigail@difflearn.com

Media: Julie Huang, Kaimen Company for Different Roads to Learning, (888) 989-8808 x703 or (917) 807-0718 or julie@kaimenco.com

Different Roads meets President Clinton! The UBS/CEO Mentorship Program Leads to the Creation of Different Roads to Learning App Tell Me About It!

It’s been a really exciting few months here at Different Roads to Learning and we wanted to share some of the highlights with you. Different Roads to Learning was one of ten small businesses selected for the CEO-UBS Small Business Advisory Program, a philanthropic partnership between UBS Wealth Management Americas and the William J. Clinton Foundation. Our App – Tell Me About It! – was developed by the incredible and innovative talent at inFusion, and is a product of this program.

The entire process was really exhilirating for all of us here. As a small business, we gained so much incredible knowledge and had the opportunity to work with a team of gifted individuals. And to top it all off, our App was unveiled at a dinner where we had the privilege of meeting President Clinton! That was a truly exciting night for all of us.

Julie and Abigail meet President Clinton along with our mentors Amy Butte and Sharon Sager

At the dinner, they even showed a short video about the making of Tell Me About It! which we wanted to share with you here. Along with interviews and demos, you’ll learn about how and why we created this App for children with Autism and a bit more about Different Roads in general. You can also read the full press release for Tell Me About it here. We hope you enjoy it!

 
 

We also wanted to share the absolutely wonderful reviews of Tell Me About It! that we’ve received thus far from trusted sites devoted to reviewing Apps for children and those with special needs:

Best Apps for Kids: https://bestappsforkids.com/2012/02/tell-me-about-it-learning-language-by-receptive-funtion-feature-category/

I Heart This App: https://iheartthisapp.com/tell-me-about-it-an-app-to-teach-labelling-to-a-child/

Special Apps, Special Kids: https://specialappsspecialkids.blogspot.com/2012/02/app-review-tell-me-about-it-different.html

 

Tell Me About It! App Press Release, Page 1

Tell Me About It! App Press Release, Page 2

Tell Me About It! Sweepstakes – Win A Free Copy of Our New App!

 Different Roads to Learning is thrilled to offer you the chance to win a free copy of our latest iPhone/iPad App for teaching language to students with Autism or speech and language delays: Tell Me About It! Learning Language by Receptive Function, Feature & Category. This special offer ends on February 17, 2012 at 11:59 PM EST.

 Tell Me About It! teaches the label, category, function, and features of more than 235 language targets over 6 levels of incremental difficulty with over 1000 unique testable attributes. The presentation of each language target conforms to an Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) discrete trial program, with reinforcement provided by a token economy system. Once the user collects the given number of tokens, they are rewarded with an adorable 5-10 second animation clip of the token character.

 Tell Me About It! provides a self-contained discrete trial program that error corrects and provides direct reinforcement to the student while collecting and synthesizing data for up to 10 students. There is a Student Report Card in the format of a data sheet that displays data for each student, with an option to email the results.

For complete details on our sweepstakes and to enter, click here

Currently, our new app Tell Me About It!is being sold in the iTunes store for $9.99. You have the chance to win it for free by entering our Sweepstakes!

 To learn more about Tell Me About It!, visit the store in iTunes by clicking here! 

 

Different Roads Introduces ‘Tell Me About It! Learning Language By Receptive Function, Feature & Category’ – An iPhone/iPad App

We’re thrilled to introduce you to our latest iPhone/iPad App for teaching language to students with Autism: Tell Me About It! Learning Language by Receptive Function, Feature & Category.

Tell Me About It! teaches the label, category, function, and features of more than 235 language targets over 6 levels of incremental difficulty with over 1000 unique testable attributes. The presentation of each language target conforms to an Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) discrete trial program, with reinforcement provided by a token economy system. Once the user collects the given number of tokens, they are rewarded with an adorable 5-10 second animation clip of the token character. Tell Me About It! provides a self-contained discrete trial program that error corrects and provides direct reinforcement to the student while collecting and synthesizing data for up to 10 students. There is a Student Report Card in the format of a data sheet that displays data for each student, with an option to email the results.

 

 Categories

The App covers 15 categories of language targets that include: Animals, Body Parts, Clothing, Food, Household Items, Dishes, Utensils, Tools, Toys, School Supplies, Sports, Vehicles, Accessories, Furniture, and Musical Instruments.

 

 
 

Levels
The App advances from the basic building blocks of language – simple labeling – all the way through shared features across categories. The Levels presented in incremental difficulty are: Labels; Categories; Function; Feature; Randomized Feature, Function, Category; and Shared Featured, Function, Category.

 

Teacher’s Console
Teachers and parents can delve into the Teacher’s Console to control the settings for each student by turning the written labels for each language target ON/OFF, selecting a specific token character, selecting the default Level, and choosing a Reinforcement Schedule.

There is even a motion that administrators can use while a game is in progress to access the Teacher’s Menu to adjust the settings or view reports. To access the Teacher’s Bar, simply swipe 2 fingers in an upward motion from the bottom of the screen up.  

 

 

Reinforcement Schedule

The Reinforcement Schedule determines how many targets the student must answer correctly in order to complete a trial session and receive a 5-10 second animation reward.  There is an option for 3, 5, or 10 tokens and you can even select the token character you want or keep the default setting of Random.

 

 

 

 

 

Reward

Once the student obtains the set number of tokens, they are rewarded with an adorable and engaging animation clip, complete with stimulating images and sounds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Reporting & Data

Tell Me About It! tracks each student’s progress and provides a report after every trial as well as a comprehensive Report Card accessible in the teacher’s console. You’ll see a + for every correct response and a for incorrect ones. If a student hasn’t yet mastered a target, you’ll see the number of presentations in parentheses after the score. You can also email the Report Card to share data and progress.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

Determining Mastery of Targets

This App strives to mimic an actual one-on-one instructional session with a therapist as much as is possible in an application. For this App, we determine which targets will be defined as mastered by the program in a variety of ways depending on how many times they have been presented.  When answered correctly on the very first presentation, the student receives both a token and verbal praise and that target is considered “known” or mastered and not presented again on that level.  If the answer is not correct on that first presentation, the target will be reintroduced in subsequent trials and must then be answered correctly on two different, consecutive presentations to be considered mastered. When an incorrect response is given, error correction is provided by having the correct image flash while auditory correction is also provided. The App then shuffles the placement of the images, and re-presents the same question. If the student answers correctly on this second attempt, they receive verbal praise only (no token) and then move to another question.  Note that your Data sheets will display, in parentheses, how many times each target has been presented so that you are always aware of your student’s progression and where there might be deficits.

 To Purchase


To purchase Tell Me About It! for $9.99, visit the App store in iTunes by clicking here!

 

 

 

Other Apps

We’re proud to offer two other quality Apps for developing language and cognitive skills.

What Goes Together?

This app teaches young learners early association skills, relationships, reasoning by asking them to match what items go with others.

 

 
What’s That Sound? Learning to Listen and Identify Sounds

This app develops auditory processing and listening skills. Hear a sound and touch the image of what makes that sound.