What Apps Will Benefit Your Patients?

The iPhone, iTouch and iPad, and many of the applications designed for them, are ideal for use by therapists seeking to improve patients fine motor skills, visual motor skills, visual attention skills, etc. And many of the useful apps are free or inexpensive. ADVANCE App Reviewer Angelia Wood, OTR/L, a therapist with Davie County Schools in Mocksville, NC, examines a different app each month and assesses its practical use in OT. The most popular app reviews from 2011 are featured in this online exclusive book.

Dexteria: Fine Motor Skills Development

An app to cover tapping, pinching and writing.

Letter Writer Oceans

Upper case letter formation in a fun and engaging format.

Vision Training
Increase the speed and efficiency of saccades or quick visual movements of the eyes.

2 3 4 5 6 7 8
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PDF-Notes
Open .pdf worksheets on the iPad in order to add your own notes, commentary, etc.

Autism: Sort and Categorize & Clean Up: Category Sorting

Apps to help with naming, sorting and categorizing while also addressing fine motor skills.

Sentence Builder:
Enhance expressive language with additional handwriting applications.

TimeReading K12 & A Sharp Eye

Two apps to aid in the development reading skills.

ADVANCE for Occupational Therapy Practitioners

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Dexteria-Fine motor skills Development

by binary Labs

This applicaTion was developed

by Frank Jenson, an app developer, in consultation with occupational therapists to help his daughter improve her fine motor skills. Dexteria covers three areas of fine motor skills: tapping, pinching and writing. The app is designed to allow development of fine motor skills by the subject and assessment of progress of the subjects fine motor skills by the therapist.

of his or her thumb to the tip of the index finger or other digit to make the crabs disappear. The time taken and each level achieved is recorded beside the date in the progress section.

wriTe iT
The third area is called "write it" and it works on improving finger control and stroke sequencing involved in the integrated hand movements required to be able to write letters. It presents the lower case letters a through z in a channel letter format with dots inside to connect with an arrow indicating path for the desired letter formation. The subject is again timed on how long it takes to move through each of the lower case letters where it is again recorded under the progress section beside the date. There is an options link that allows the therapist to restore default after each subject is tested, clear best times or provide

Tap iT
The first section requires finger and hand movements and is called "tap it". This function has you place your fingertips on the screen as it calibrates where your fingertips are. Next the subject places his or her thumb on the thumb spot while their fingertips tap the correct colored dots as they appear in various areas eliciting varying degrees of flexion in the digits as each digit has to tap the dots. The dots move and increase in speed as the levels go up developing finger dexterity and isolation. Each level achieved is recorded beside the date along with the time taken to perform the task in the progress report section. This allows for progress monitoring data to be collected for the activity.

feedback to the designer. The designer of this application desires users to give feedback on any ideas they have for improving the application. The designer was quick to respond back with feedback and ask for more specifics when this writers ideas were submitted. This application version was released in march 10, 2011 for $9.99 and updated on may 13, 2011 with a current cost of $4.99. (The designer offers the user free upgrade if the developer utilizes the users ideas in future upgrades.) n
reviewer Angelia wood, oTr/l, is a therapist with Davie county schools in mocksville, Nc.

rating of Function for occupational Therapists 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 Usefulness as oT evaluation tool relevance for use with progress monitoring

number of stars out of 5

pinch iT
The next skill covered is "pinch it", which works on finger and hand movements for fine motor manipulation and control. A series of stationary crabs are first displayed; the crabs then progress to moving around as level of difficulty progresses. The subject is required to pinch the tip

DIsclAImEr: Your doctor or therapist has given you this patient handout to further explain or remind you about an issue related to your health. This handout is a general guide only. If you have specific questions, discuss them with your doctor or therapist.

ADVANCE for Occupational Therapy Practitioners

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letter writer oceans makes writing Fun

by barking Dog interactive

The leTTer wriTer oceans application is an excellent tool for use when teaching upper case letter formation in a fun and engaging format. The seller of this application is John chamberlain and the app is listed under Barking Dog Interactive. chamberlain and his wife developed letter writer oceans because they wanted a better writing game for their child to use on the iphone. It was updated on December 3, 2009 and is currently selling for half price at $.99 due to its recent excellent reviews and ratings.

leTTer FormaTion
The child scrolls through the letters while an entrancing, calming, soft music plays in the background. There is a realistic Disney-esque Nemo fish that moves to the starting point to begin the letter formation. Then the fish follows the path as the child makes the letter while following the path of dots, one stroke at a time. It also reinforces with a solid line after the strokes are made. If the child goes off the correct path, the fish will swim back to the correct starting point and a different sound is made to alert them to try again. After the child masters four letters and receives four starfish, a book is unlocked with a rhyme for each letter about the sea picture that is shown for each letter. This can be activated by leading the fish to the bottom right corner and tapping the storybook icon for each letter after it is unlocked.

ing music. It can be used with children who have autism, learning disabilities or behavior issues. many of these children may have an aversion to writing with typical writing tools of pencil and paper. This application has the potential to really engage them in the task. It promotes increased visual attention as the child tracks the fish as it follows their movements. It allows writing activities through the use of a finger or the stylus pen to trace the letters. This can be performed first with hand over hand guidance and then progressed to independent letter formation. For children who have a diagnosis or behaviors that limit their ability to engage in writing in the typical manner, this is an option to engage them in a typical classroom function of letter writing that makes writing like a game, fun.

and is called letter writer space which has rocket ships instead of fish for its theme. It is offered for the same price of $.99. The seller does take comments and input as to how the applications can be improved, but this was not easily accessed by way of the application. The website for suggestions was found by browsing the internet for it. n
reviewer Angelia wood, oTr/l, is a therapist with Davie county schools in mocksville, Nc.

NoTEs:

lower case leTTers

The lower case version has also been released rating of Function for occupational Therapists 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 Usefulness as oT evaluation tool relevance for use with progress monitoring number of stars out of 5

Use wiTh clienTs

This application uses very soothing and calm-

DIsclAImEr: Your doctor or therapist has given you this patient handout to further explain or remind you about an issue related to your health. This handout is a general guide only. If you have specific questions, discuss them with your doctor or therapist.

ADVANCE for Occupational Therapy Practitioners

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Hoppy's vision Training 1

by cPac co. inc.

hoppys vision Training 1 application was created by optometrist Katsuya Kitade, and developed by cpAc co. Inc. released in April of 2011, it is listed as a medical application designed to train the eye muscles to move and track quicker and more efficiently. visual scanning and saccades are one of the needed mechanisms for perception and interpretation when reading a passage of text or when using the eyes for sports and other activities. If the therapist, upon evaluation of a subject, sees that the subject is having difficulty with the task of scanning or saccades, this may be a useful application for the treatment plan. This app trains the vision to increase the speed and efficiency of saccades or quick visual movements of the eyes; therefore, it can be used to help children with eye hand coordination skills for activities such as playing sports and to assist in eye scanning efficiency for reading skills.

The therapist can use red and green glasses to train binocular vision, as well. letters, numbers, colors or arrows of four different directions may be chosen to track. The therapist can also control the speed and direction within the ipad box screen in which the subject is to track. The subject is told to hold his or her head still and to only use their eyes to follow the colored box as it moves over the letters, numbers or arrows. He or she is then instructed to tap the colored box as quickly as possible when it moves to the next item. The subject is given points for tapping on the screen. The items need to be tapped correctly and in a timely fashion for the subject to obtain a point. The therapist can type in different subjects names and track their progress, as this app records the best score for each date and each set of items attempted. Be sure to use the same settings if tracking for progress.

This is a great tool to document progress with visual scanning which is a needed skill for efficient reading. with all of the emphasis on children and their ability to read quickly in todays fast paced learning environments, this is yet another way occupational therapists can assist the IEp team in helping children meet their reading fluency goals. The full version is currently available on itunes for $9.99. requirements include ios 3.2 or higher. search for "vision training 1" in the itunes app store. (Be sure to include the number 1 in the search and look for the Hoppy the Dog icon.) For more detailed information or for any questions, contact the seller at hattorikun@ minos.ocn.ne.jp. n
reviewer Angelia wood, oTr/l, is a therapist with Davie county schools in mocksville, Nc.

NoTEs:

rating of Function for occupational Therapists 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

number of stars out of 5

DIsclAImEr: Your doctor or therapist has given you this patient handout to further explain or remind you about an issue related to your health. This handout is a general guide only. If you have specific questions, discuss them with your doctor or therapist.

ADVANCE for Occupational Therapy Practitioners

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pDF-notes
by aMusetec co., LtD

This applicaTion is prodUced by

AmuseTec co., ltd. The full version costs $9.99 and is available for download in the iTunes store under the application section. Updates made last month included the addition of a palmrest; page thumbnails preview accessible via tapping the slider; and movement of the zoom from the center of the screen to the tapping position. reported bugs were also corrected. This app is an excellent tool for making a paper worksheet accessible to write and draw on from the ipad. The application transfers worksheets and pDF files into the program. The worksheet can then be written on as if it were a paper worksheet by using the stylus pen or the fingertip. The documents can be made into pDF files, usually on programs like word, prior to sending to the ipad by choosing the print option and then checking or clicking the pDF option and saving as a pDF file. This file can then be accessed from the app by emailing the pDF file selected. To open, tap the emailed document on the ipad. Next, tap the top right of the screen to see choices of what to do with the document. Then choose to open in pDF-notes. The document will then be placed on the shelf in the app's "bookshelves". To access, tap the document once with one finger one time. Then tap once in the center of the document with one finger to access the toolbar to choose color of lines and width. Tap the color and width desired and begin writing on the document just like a regular worksheet. when finished, the worksheet/pDF docu-

ment can be saved by taking a photo of it on the ipad screen by clicking the top right button on the ipad and then the bottom front button on the screen. Next, go to photos and save as a file on the ipad. You can open and save it to your pc and/or print and file if desired. Documentation such as therapy notes and evaluations can be loaded and used in the same manner described above thus eliminating the need to carry notebooks of worksheets, laptops, documentation and other paperwork. The app gives the therapist the ability to carry one compact, light weight, ipad. many free worksheets are available, already in the pDF format, by searching free perceptual worksheets on the web. some visual motor and fine motor worksheet sites that are useful for finding these to open in pDF-notes for use are: www.tlsbooks .com; www.abcjesuslovesme.com; www .HaveFunTeaching.com. To load a worksheet onto the pDF-notes

bookshelf for use, click on the document desired to open it to full screen on the ipad and then tap on the document one time. The option to open in pDF-notes should appear in the top right hand corner if pDFnotes is already loaded on the ipad. Tap this option and it automatically puts the worksheet in pDF-notes. It can take some practice to get used to all of the tools and functions that this application offers and the process of moving documents, so this app takes some practice to use. There are youtube.com videos available as tutorials and the program comes with a basic guide, a bookshelf guide and an advanced guide for training in all of the available features of the application. n
reviewer Angelia wood, oTr/l, is a therapist with Davie county schools in mocksville, Nc.

rating of Function for occupational Therapists 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

number of stars out of 5

DIsclAImEr: Your doctor or therapist has given you this patient handout to further explain or remind you about an issue related to your health. This handout is a general guide only. If you have specific questions, discuss them with your doctor or therapist.

ADVANCE for Occupational Therapy Practitioners

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prompt if not correct. Both of these applications are free and can be located by typing in Autism and clicking to search in the iTunes store and then looking for the titles as listed above. n
reviewer Angelia wood, oTr/l, is a therapist with Davie county schools in mocksville, Nc.

2 sorting Apps work well with Autism

by naturaL Learning concePts anD Different roaDs to Learning

NoTEs:

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, sorting 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 tester 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 categories 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 Different roads to learning. It also involves sorting and categorizing. Different roads to learning is also a company developed by the mother of a child with autism. Julie Azuma adopted a child from seoul, Korea and the child was not developing 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 store offered 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 rating of Function for occupational Therapists 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 number of stars out of 5

DIsclAImEr: Your doctor or therapist has given you this patient handout to further explain or remind you about an issue related to your health. This handout is a general guide only. If you have specific questions, discuss them with your doctor or therapist.

ADVANCE for Occupational Therapy Practitioners

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Expressing language with sentenceBuilder

by northwest kineMatics
This applicaTion was developed by T. Kyle Tomson and was copyrighted by Northwest Kinematics in 2009. It was recently updated on Jan. 6, 2011. Tomoson developed the app for his daughter caitlyn who is on the autism spectrum. caitlyn, who is very high functioning, struggles with expressive language. Tomoson had searched for applications that could help his daughter in the area of expressive communication., but the only apps he could find were for lower functioning children. Tomoson developed the app specifically to meet caitlyn's needs at schoolto aid her in making expressive sentences that were grammatically correct. caitlyn could make sentences, however when she would try to say them they would be not put together correctly. Knowing that his daughter learned best through pictures and visual information, Tomoson made sure to include lots of animation in the application. The app was a huge success with his daughter, which led Tomoson to create Question Builder and story Builder to also help with additional challenges for caitlyn at school. All of these applications quickly became very popular with special education teachers and speech therapists. I have found that this application can also benefit occupational therapists working on handwriting skills in high functioning children on the spectrum. The child looks at the picture given and then uses the spinning dial to make the correct sentence. The oT can then require that

the child copy the sentence to work on their handwriting. This way the handwrit-ing can be integrated with the teachers goal (formulation of a grammatically correct sentence), the oTs goal (correct letter formation, size and spacing) and the overall team goal (improving the childs independence with written expression in the academic environment). The app works on the childs needs by presenting the work in a visually stimulating way using technology such as the ipad, which is very exciting for children to work with. It also creates confidence by providing choices in learning to build the sentence instead of just having to come up with a sentence on their own. This correct modeling can then carry over into their independent sentence creation. Then the story Builder app can be used to further develop writing skills. In this applicaiton, the child can begin to create the whole sentence and story

from just a picture prompt. sentence builder offers levels of play from one to three. level one offers a few choices while level three offers many choices in order to make the correct sentence for the picture displayed on the screen. choices are made by turning a dial to pick for each word in the sentence. The childs name is entered and data is stored in the stats section and tells how many correct sentences are achieved out of how many attempted for each of the levels to help the therapist document progress with sentence formation. sentence Builder and story Builder can both be purchased from iTunes for $3.99 each. n
reviewer Angelia wood, oTr/l, is a therapist with Davie county schools in mocksville, Nc.

rating of Function for occupational Therapists 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 Usefulness as oT evaluation tool relevance for use with progress monitoring

number of stars out of 5

DIsclAImEr: Your doctor or therapist has given you this patient handout to further explain or remind you about an issue related to your health. This handout is a general guide only. If you have specific questions, discuss them with your doctor or therapist.

ADVANCE for Occupational Therapy Practitioners

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the testing can be skipped when used with children not yet at this reading level while still utilizing the eye tracking ball exercises. various colors of balls which flash in different tracking planes move about at various points on the screensuch as right to left; diagonally, in a square pattern; left to right; up and down; all around the screen; and converging. The app then presents sentences one at a time and then two at a time to see if the student can speed read them. For children who are K-4th grade level, I recommend using just the tracking exercises with the quick vision training exercise mode. Again this application works on visual tracking which in turn helps the goal of reading fluency. n
reviewer Angelia wood, oTr/l, is a therapist with Davie county schools in mocksville, Nc.

Apps to Develop reading skills

by k12 anD sP soft
Timereading K12 is a great application for use with school age children. released in 2010, this application has a free trial version. The full version only costs $1.99. It was created by K12 Inc. as part of its comprehensive language Arts and phonics curriculum. students are organized on the app by first and last name with a running list of which stories they have read and how many words per minute they were able to read. Enter the students name and then choose the reading level you wish that child to start with. The app offers a reading list from which the child can then select a story to read. The user taps an arrow at the bottom of the screen to advance to the next page of the story. A pause option is available if needed. The app begins to time the users reading. At the end of the session the child taps done. The app will then calculate how many words per minute the student read. The students time can be saved so that he or she can attempt to beat their time. The therapist can also then track the childs progress with each storys time in words per minute and with progression up the reading level. The app will also give a percentage score on the reading list by the story after it is read and will compare the childs score with how far he or she was above or below the average reading rate for the grade level as compared to typical developing age peers.

with the responsibility for literacy now holding everyone accountable for assisting children in their progress toward literacy, applications like this can give good data for progress monitoring while continuing to work on goals such as visual tracking and visual attention skills. A sharp Eye by sp soft is another great application that can be used with school aged as well as adults to work on eye movements needed to help with reading fluency. released in Dec. 2010 and updated a month later, there is a free trial version as well as full versions ranging from $.99 to $2.99. The app has 12 sessions, each of which last 10 minutes. The passage used for testing is designed for adults; however,

NoTEs:

rating of Function for occupational Therapists 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 Usefulness as oT evaluation tool relevance for use with progress monitoring

number of stars out of 5

DIsclAImEr: Your doctor or therapist has given you this patient handout to further explain or remind you about an issue related to your health. This handout is a general guide only. If you have specific questions, discuss them with your doctor or therapist.

ADVANCE for Occupational Therapy Practitioners