8/3/2019 AppReview_SortAndCatCleanUp

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NATURAL LEARNING CONCEPTS Autism:

Sort and Categorize application is great for

therapists, educators and family

to work with children who have

autism on naming pictures, sort-ing and placing real pictures of

items in categories.

Natural Learning Concepts is a

company started by Jene Aviram

in 2002. Her son was diagnosed

with PDD-NOS/Asperger/s and

she has another child with special

needs. She began the company

by developing things she could

not find that she wanted for her

children to use. Now her children

help by working as a product tes-

ter and proofreader in the family

business which sells specialty

products for children with autism and other

developmental delays.

In this NLConcepts application, there are 16

different categories. The app works on fine

motor skills as well as sorting. The child has to

touch with a fingertip one of the four catego-

ries given at the top when the card appears

at the bottom to indicate which category the

item should go in. It gives a motivating sound

if the child gets it correct and a beep if they

are incorrect. This application is free.

Clean Up: Category Sorting, is by Dif ferent

Roads to Learning. It also involves sorting andcategorizing.

Different Roads to Learning is also a com-

pany developed by the mother of a child with

autism. Julie Azuma adopted a child from

Seoul, Korea and the child was not develop-

ing on target with milestones. At the age of 6

the child was diagnosed with autism.

Her child's diagnosis sparked Julie to look

for items to work with children

with autism, specifically ABA

products. In 1995 her storeoffered 30 Applied Behavior

Analysis (ABA) products. Today,

it has many great products for

children who have autism.

In The Clean Up app, an item

is presented at the top and 3

category locations are given at

the bottom. The child must drag

the object given by touching and

dragging to place the object in

the one of the three categories.

This app addresses fine and visual

motor skills at the same time as

the cognitive skill of sorting and

categorizing. The app gives a star and praise

if the object is placed in the correct location

and a try again prompt if not correct.

[ APPLICATION REVIEW]

2 Sorting Apps WorkWell With Autism

Both of these applications are free and can

be located by typing in Autism and clicking

to search in the iTunes store and then lookingfor the titles as listed above.

Reviewer Angelia Wood, OTR/L, is a therapist with

Davie County Schools in Mocksville, NC.

Rating of Function for Occupational TherapistsNumber of Stars

out of 5

Ease of Use

Relevance to OT

Frequency of projected use

Potential for upgrade with improvements

Usefulness for therapeutic intervention with fine motor skills

Usefulness for therapeutic intervention with visual motor skills

Usefulness for therapeutic intervention with handwriting/reading

Usefulness as OT evaluation tool

Relevance for use with progress monitoring

BY NATURAL LEARNING CONCEPTS AND DIFFERENT ROADS TO LEARNING

NOTES: