This review is courtesy of Wynsum Arts’ Every App Has a Story, the stories behind Wynsum Arts’ distinguished apps.
“Our apps are designed to help children understand social situations. We use real photos, text and audio, and the apps help to reduce anxiety, as well as offer support for children to recall, retain and retell what they did with ease.”
– Amy Criscuolo, mom of two and co-founder of i Get It!
i See-quence … My Schedules at School
When Amy Criscuolo’s son first received his iPad three years ago, she began looking for apps appropriate for children with autism. But she didn’t find many apps for her then-9-year-old.
“Most of the apps were geared towards younger children, and there were not many with real photos. I knew my son learned best from real photos instead of cartoon images and PECS [Picture Exchange Communication System],” she explains.
In February of 2011, Criscuolo teamed with speech therapist Sharon Walters to create apps appropriate for children with autism and other special needs. Thanks to Walters’ professional input, the apps support children of varying ages and abilities.
Why Did You Found i Get It! and create apps like i See-quence … My Schedules at School?
Amy Criscuolo: Many children with special needs have trouble with recalling, retaining and retelling about social situations, and they do not always learn from their environment. Parents and teachers of these children must invest significant time explaining new situations to these children. When I saw the iPad, I knew this would be a more efficient and convenient way to make effective social stories versus all the Velcro projects that parents and teachers have traditionally used.
With our first app, All About Me Storybook, we developed a framework for our apps that basically works like a book with pages that a child can scroll through. Out of that framework grew our i See-quence series, including i See-quence… My Schedules at School.
These apps are easily customized and they allow children who learn from repetition to autonomously review the social stories as often as they like.
How Do the i See-quence apps work?
Amy Criscuolo: I wanted to offer easy solutions to parents and teachers. Each i See-quence app has a full social story complete with photos — and it is simple for users to customize and fine tune the apps with custom pictures, text, audio and additional pages. You can take pictures with your iPhone or iPad or you can email pictures to the device to update or create a social story.
The i See-quence apps are simple to use and they offer guidance to people who are not comfortable making social stories. (For people who are more comfortable creating social stories from scratch, we developed i Create… Social Skills Stories app.)
Users can make multiple social stories in each i See-quence app. For example, with My Schedules at School, you can make different social stories for each day of the week to help students learn schedules that may vary from day to day.
Each app can also support multiple users, so different children within a classroom can each have social stories customized with their own images.
I knew what would work with my son, but with Sharon’s experience working with kids of varying ages and abilities, we have created apps that work for children who have different needs.
To see i See-quence… My Schedules at School in action, view this video tutorial by the Remle Project.
Editor’s Note: Other i See-quence Apps include My Schedules at Home, Going to the Beach, Going to Fireworks, Going to a Restaurant, Going to the Playground, and various holidays. i Get It! has also produced a series of identification apps to learn family members, classmates, people at school and members of the community.
Wynsum Arts’ mission is supported through the purchase of apps from i.AM Search – available in iTunes. That’s how we can do what we do for free!
TRADEMARK INFORMATION
The words “Social Story” and “Social Stories”, and their uncapitalized variants, are trademarks originated and owned by Carol Gray.
“Social Stories” written following Carol Gray’s Social Story Guidelines are distinctively associated with Carol Gray’s name and reputation as an educator of persons with autism spectrum disorders, their parents and the professionals working with them. Among writers, professionals and parents concerned with autism spectrum disorders, the terms “Social Story”, “Social Stories” and their uncapitalized variants have an understood reference to Carol Gray as the originator and chief exponent of Social Stories as effective tools in the education and counseling of persons with autistic spectrum disorders.
Editor’s note: Though the term “social stories” is becoming a common term, we wish to express our appreciation to the trademark’s original owner Ms. Carol Gray. We acknowledge that when reporting and interviewing an existing developer regarding their work, we assume all intellectual property concerns are the responsibility of the developer. Wynsum Arts, and this blog, is an independent social enterprise and does not legally represent the developers or their products that we interview.
