iPad and my Son

iPad is the most wonderful tool I have found for educating my son. In fact rather than me educating, he educated himself. The IOS(operating system on the iPad) controls are so intuitive that he learnt to use all the gestures like swipe, pinch, tap, escape on the screen in no time by himself. The apps on iPad are also very well designed.

These apps became important for my son for two reasons 1. For repetitive lessons 2. Pronunciation and 3. Self-engagement.

Repetitive lessons

My son needed to be run through with some concepts many times before he could make a connection and start grasping it. But it took infinite time, patience for both me and my son as we had to cross every tiny little lesson this way. iPad easily solved this problem, because that was a toy for him, it was not trying to coach him J, and he himself repeatedly played on it. For example there is a wonderful app called “First Words” which taught words like Cat, Mat, and Apple with spelling, pronunciation, left to right sequencing etc. He would run through these words hundreds of times in the course of his play which is very difficult to achieve in face to face coaching. And later on I bought a paid version of the apps which includes abstract words like, “If”, “Shall”, “It” etc. and he is getting that too.

Pronunciation

My son had lot of difficulties in getting some sound like “ra”, “ka” and “fa” when he started verbalising and I was teaching him more sounds and words.  By many wonderful apps on iPad which repeat the words with clear pronunciation, he started getting these words. This was one of the biggest boost for his spoken communication.

Self-Engagement

I occasionally needed a break and iPad gave it J.Period.
Now I will get on to some of the apps. Most of these apps are free. And I did buy many apps which were interesting to my son as it enabled more features and choices.

Apps Listing

Wooden Jigsaw:

Puzzle games are wonderful for developing logic and here are some good ones for it. And the software design ensured that it corrected my son gently when he wrongly fitted a piece. I found my son doing a physical Jigsaw with much more interest after playing in this app.
https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/wooden-jigsaw/id654091392?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/wood-puzzle-hd/id381583071?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/my-first-puzzles-alphabet/id408435398?mt=8 (alphabets) https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/christmas-jigsaw-puzzles-123/id484022505?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/farm-jigsaw-puzzles-123-fun/id439568730?mt=8

For Spelling:

"First words" is one of the best and unmatched apps in iPad for any kid.
https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/first-words-animals/id294536447?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/first-words-deluxe/id337462979?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/first-words-professional/id507560748?mt=8

Phonics:

This is a wonderful app for teaching phonics
https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/first-letters-and-phonics/id346591226?mt=8

My Play Home:

This is very interactive and lots of fun and my son learnt a lot of things about a home here J
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/my-playhome/id439628153?mt=8
http://www.myfirstapp.com

Build it up:

It bought out the little engineer in my son. Its self-correcting mechanism is so difficult to teach in real life.
https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/build-it-up/id421839260?mt=8

Sorting:

All kinds of sorting that I didn’t imagine that was there for my kid to teach.
https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/sort-it-out-1/id501939025?mt=8
https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/sort-it-out-2/id501952788?mt=8
https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/sorting-game/id665696008?mt=8

Matrix Game and Series:

Complex logic made simple and fun
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/matrix-game-1/id684669498?mt=8
https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/series-1/id501937796?mt=8
https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/series-2/id501938262?mt=8

Matching:

This matching is a little advanced one and yet it was absorbing for my kid for some time.
https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/match-it-up-1/id421840435?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/match-it-up-2/id421841614?mt=8

To Learn Colors and Numbers:

My son’s favourite. It has a wonderful concept of teaching colours and numbers. Lovely.
https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/candy-count-learn-colors-numbers/id454950461?mt=8

Memory:

I could have never believed that my son could play the little memory game that I used to play as a kid. Arranging Playing cards on the floor face down, opening them up as a pair at a time and trying to match them. But it happened. This is the app that pulled my son’s interest on iPad.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/kids-match-all-in-one-memory/id492544069?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/awesome-memory-match-fun-matching/id535014207?mt=8

Clock Puzzle:

I introduced this to make my son understand about clocks and time. Though it has not happened yet, he has got his first understanding about the clocks in our house in some form.
https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/clockwork-puzzle-learn-to/id541556830?mt=8

Maze:

This maze is amazing. It has lot of variety of mazes, all fun and educative.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toddler-maze-123-fun-learning/id569328780?mt=8

Tips

1.      All the apps need not be educational. Your kid needs to relax himself too. Give them a good variety, so that they don’t reject this form of education.

       2.      If your kids get too obsessed with some apps and that if fun is lost and they do it because      of  some repetitive behavior, remove the apps before giving it to your kids the next time.
       3.      Give the iPad to play in a lighted room in good sitting posture so that they don’t spoil their eyes and back.
       4.      Give them at some planned, appropriate intervals so that they play with other things as well. 

Join my facebook page https://www.facebook.com/winautism for future updates.

Please click the following link for a comprehensive documentation of my journey with Aakash: Click Here

Here is the link to the playlist of Activities done with Aakash, in YouTube: Click Here


                     Previous                               Next