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<div>Integrating Educational Apps and Classroom Lessons for Students with Autism and Special Needs</span>

A 100 book give away may bring autism educational apps to a lesson plan near you.


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<div>Educational Apps have been showing great success with many students
with special needs and autism. They are motivating learning tools.
Although, the numbers of users of mobile tablets are increasing by the
hour, most educators and parents are struggling with where to start
when it comes to choosing apps.
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<div>Companies like AutismClassroom.com would like to help. “The best
we can do is share some of the apps we find useful in a learning
situation,” says S.B. Linton, owner of AutismClassroom.com, the online
resource for parents and educators. Educational apps that have the
ability to be linked to classroom discussions and classroom lessons are
very useful since many school systems are buying tablets such as the
iPad for their classrooms. “We developed our Autism Classroom app and
our other mobile apps for educators and parents to learn more about
teaching children with autism, however, we shop for apps that are
educational for kids,” she added. Parents and educators need to look
for apps that have a high interest value to the student, are reasonably
entertaining, and are appropriate for the child. Having the app match
up to the theme or unit that the class is working on is an extra bonus.


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<div>AutismClassroom.com’s book, Lesson Ideas and Activities for Young
Children with Autism and Related Special Needs: Activities, Apps and
Lessons for Joint Attention, Imitation, Play, Social Skills &amp; More
(2010), matches apps to the actual instructional lesson. The book
already provided teachers and parents with over 100 starting points and
beginning places for creating meaningful activities for pre-school and
elementary-aged students with autism and related special needs. Each
theme unit provided activity based ideas specific to Joint Attention,
Imitation Skills, Communication, Self-Help Skills, Independent Skills,
Pre-Vocational Skills, Social Skills, Play Skills, Sensory Involvement,
Basic Concept Mastery, Vocabulary/Literacy, Fine Motor, and Gross
Motor. However, just recently, the newly added “Apps” chapter
highlights ten educational apps in each skill area. The over 100
highlighted apps can be easily incorporated into lessons and activities
for young children with autism and special needs.


“Take the area of self-help, for example, to incorporate an app into a
lesson, a teacher or parent teaching a lesson about going on a
vacation or about summer vacations, can use the app My Little Suitcase
by Moms With Apps. ™ The adult can have the students practice
“packing” the suitcase on the app, then pack real items in a real
suitcase,” says Linton. “When you do this, you address communication
skills, following directions, folding clothes, identifying items, and
various other skills.”
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<div>This April, in honor of Autism Awareness Month,
AutismClassroom.com would like to give away 100 Lesson Ideas and
Activities for Young Children with Autism and Related Special Needs:
Activities, Apps and Lessons for Joint Attention, Imitation, Play,
Social Skills &amp; More (2010) books to families, community support
personnel and school teams who are working with children with autism.
According to the rules of the contest, 25 books each will be given to
four school, organization or family teams. Teams can share the 25 books
with other members of the school team and with student’s families.


“As always, we want everyone, no matter how much funding their school
or household has or doesn’t have, to have access to fun educational
ideas for students with special needs,” said Linton. “We also want to
make it easy,” she added “to enter the contest, please go to www.autismclassroom.com,
or send a letter or email with your return address stating why your
group could use these supports.” Please send requests by April 14,
2011, to AutismClassroom.com at P.O. Box 3234, Baltimore, MD 21228, or linton@autismclassroom.com .



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