I recently attended the 14th annual Statewide Autism Resources and Training (START) conference in Lansing, MI featuring V. Mark Durand, PhD., from the University of South Florida as the keynote speaker. Dr. Durand’s presentation was great, as was the overall conference.

Kindy Segovia, from Kent intermediate school district (ISD) in Michigan was the presenter for a breakout session on technology for students with autism at the aforementioned conference. She shared a wealth of resources, including some great apps that I am pleased to pass along to our subscribers:

Keyboard Apps
Word Board Keyboard: Helps to save time typing by allowing the keyboard to be personalized.  Locate Me Keyboard: Share your location info (e.g., Google Maps, Apple Maps) directly to others via SMS Text, Facebook, Twitter, E-Mail or any other app using this keyboard.

Voice Keyboard Pro: First and only voice-capability keyboard of the world on any mobile platforms.  iMean: iMean turns iPad into a letterboard with large easy-to-read keys and word suggestions.

Keedogo Keyboard: an iOS keyboard designed for children and young students who just started to read, write and type. The keyboard provides a simplified layout with just the essential keys so early writers can focus on developing their skills rather than being distracted by symbols and functions they don’t yet need.

Keeble Keyboard: an iOS keyboard that allows users with fine motorchallenges, switch users and users with vision impairments to type in any app. The keyboard offers word prediction, timing options, Select on Release, Select on Dwell, auditory feedback and other accessibility features.

Social Narratives/Stories, Visual Schedule, Task Step Apps

Social Stories Creator: easily create and share educational social stories, visual schedules and beautiful memories.

Stories About Me: Creating, editing, and ordering stories is easy and simple. Sharing stories with others who have the app and backing them up is made possible with Dropbox integration. Parental lock feature prevents accidental edits or deletions.

Pictello: Make a social story or visual schedule for a child with autism or a slide show of holiday pictures for your friends – Pictello makes it a breeze to create and share! Whether you use the included naturalsounding Text to Speech voices, or record your own voice. Each page in a Pictello story consists of a photo or video and some text, which can be read aloud by a Text to Speech voice or your own recorded audio.

POW Strip Designer: Research suggests that some learners with autism benefit from instruction via comic strip instruction (e.g., illustrated social interactions in which text appears in each person’s speech bubble). Select one of the many included page templates. Insert photos into the cells. Add a couple of balloons with fun words. Add additional effect symbols (stickers) like “Boom”, “Splash”, or “Bang” to spice up the story. When you are happy with your new graphic novel, share it with friends and family. Photos can be added from the camera, your photo-album, or downloaded directly from your Facebook account. You can apply filters to photos, and change the layout of the page to fit your needs. You can even paint on the photos, or draw your own sketches from scratch.

Kid in Story Book Maker: create visual stories to support learning, social modeling, and early literacy with your child as the star character. Templates come to life when you place your child or student’s picture on every page. The 12 story templates cover a variety of practical and fanciful topics from promoting good hygiene by washing your hands, to a playful exploration of emotions and facial expressions, to a fantasy visit to San Francisco! You can also write your own custom story or modify any of the templates as you see fit.

Stories2Learn (S2L) 3.0: an affordable and powerful way to promote social messages to individuals with autism and other developmental disabilities. Noted on multiple parent blogs as a “top 10 application for autism,”