Helpful Apps and Websites – Autism Spectrum Disorders Clinic

Smart-Phone and Tablet “Apps”

The following tablet and smart-phone apps might be helpful resources for parents and children with ASD and other neurodevelopmental disorders.

The Autism & PDD Social Stories app features the loveable characters from the series Matt and Molly, who provide functional education for children with ASD and other neurodevelopmental disorders. The app provides fun and easy-to-use lessons teach appropriate behaviors for when they’re out and about in the community.
All About Me allows users to create storybooks or social stories using their own personal information with customizable photos, text, and audio features.
Autism Emotion is an app that uses music and a photo slideshow to help teach about different emotions.
Autism Express is an app that helps individuals with autism learn to recognize and express emotions through fun, easy interface games.
The Bag Game app is a spinoff of “20 Questions” and allows individuals of all ages to play against one another. This is ideal for use in small educational groups to facilitate social communication and conversations, and to address turn taking, impulse control, theory of mind, and much more.
Behavior World is a customizable tool for parents, teacher, and other individuals working with children that promotes the use of positive reinforcement to help teach skills and shape behavior.
Birdhouse for Autism is an app that allows caregivers the ability to track behaviors, health, and daily living tasks of children with autism. It also allows for the identification of patterns of behaviors, which can help the caregivers determine what is working in the child’s daily schedule and what might need to be changed.
Children with Autism: A Visual Schedule is an app that allows for custom-made icons that to be put in visual schedule. The app will alert the user when he/she needs to begin a new task.
ChoiceWorks is an app that helps children complete daily routines and tasks, understand and control feelings, and improve patience and frustration tolerance.
The Circles App helps teach children about physical and personal boundaries by emphasizing the idea that the closeness they have with others and how they touch them depends on the type of relationship they have with them. This app is helpful for many people with autism who often have a difficult time understanding personal space.
DayCape is a visual planning app that allows children to set up and manage their day using personalized images, timers, and notifications.
Draw Emotions is a fun app that allows individuals to draw emotions on a character’s face as a way to learn to identify and express emotions. $
Emotionary by Me is an app that helps children learn and express emotions in the context of their own lives through “journaling” or documenting personal events.
Everyday Social Skills covers basic social skills needed for everyday activities in the community and common daily activities such as walking down the street, using a restroom, waiting in line, asking for directions, asking for information and joining in a group.
Find My Family, Friends, & iPhone – Life360 Locator is an intuitive tracker app that can help parents monitor the location of their child and his/her phone. This can be particularly useful for children and adolescents who are prone to wandering.
The Functional Planning System app Utilizing uses video modeling and calendar-like features to help plan out the user’s day. Activities can be scheduled, and step-by-step videos prompt the user through the completion of the activity.
The FunTimer app helps support behavior management and ease transitions through the use of a timer and prompts for positive reinforcement.
The I Am A Nice Person app has various social stories for common social interactions that help teach children appropriate social behaviors through fun, interactive stories.
I Know How You Feel is an app that helps people with ASD to learn and identify emotions in others and develop appropriate empathic responses to those emotions.
The iModeling app is a video modeling application designed to teach skills to people with ASD and other disabilities at any skill level.
The iPrompts and iPrompts XL – Visual Supports apps allow users to create and present sequences of pictures, breaking down tasks into discrete steps or presenting upcoming events in an easy-to-understand visual format.
My Video Schedule is an app that is individualized and customizable. It combines video modeling within a structured schedule while providing positive reinforcement for individuals of all ages to help with activities of daily living. It also comes with a full library of photos and videos pre-made at no additional charge.
Proloquo2Go is a symbol-based, augmentative communication application that allows children with limited verbal abilities to communicate. This app offers picture only, picture and text, and keyboard options for text-based communication, which the app then “reads” aloud.
Smile at Me provides quick, repeated practice in interpreting social cues, and rewards children for responding with appropriate social smiles
Social Success is an interactive social skills tutorial for adolescents and adults with ASD that covers 50 social skills in an easy-to-navigate interface, so it can be used independently or in self-directed groups.
Stories 2 Learn allows for the creation of personalized social stories using pictures, texts, and audio messages and can help with communication, transitions, and navigating social situations.
QuickCues is a social script app that helps teens and young adults with ASD learn ways to handle new social situations and learn new social skills.
The Zones of Regulation app is based on a framework for thinking as well as a curriculum geared towards helping children gain skills in consciously regulating their behaviors, including the management of their emotions and level of alertness. This in turn leads to increased control and problem solving abilities.

More apps can be found at here or by searching “Autism Apps” in the App Store.

Sleep Apps

Many children with ASD and other neurodevelopmental disorders have difficulty sleeping. The following apps might be helping in supporting good sleep habits and helping children fall and stay asleep.

White Noise is an app that provides ambient sounds which help many people fall and stay asleep by blocking out distractions both in the environment and in their brain. It can also help calm racing thoughts which also interfere with sleep.
The Go To Bed app helps set routines for when to start getting ready for bed and can ease the transition into bedtime for many children.
SleepBot is an app that tracks sleep, uses a smart alarm, and provides ambient sounds to help people track the quantity and quality of sleep, wake up during a time of heightened alertness, and block out distractions to fall and stay asleep with ambient sounds.

Autism Speaks Toolkits

Autism Speaks is an organization that provides information about ASD and helps connect families with resources in their community. They also provide tool kits on various topics that are often helpful for people with ASD and their families. These can be found on the Autism Speaks website and are also listed and linked below.

Websites and Other Online Resources

And Next Comes is a website that has a number of resources for children and teens with autism including free social stories for a variety of situations.
Boom Learning or “Boom Cards” is a website that allows users to create virtual flash cards and share them with others on the Boom Marketplace or keep them in your private library to help with learning activities in a fun, virtual way. There are free and paid options on this site.
Children’s National provides a list of online resources for teachers that can help them develop classrooms, activities, and interactions that facilitate inclusion and growth for students with ASD of all ages.
The Indiana Resource Center for Autism provides extensive resources for parents, providers, and individuals with ASD that are available online.
TeachersPayTeachers is a website that includes activities for children of all ages focusing on phonics, social skills, mathematics, reading, and more. Activities are created and added by users. There are free resources on here as well as paid activities.
The SLP Solution website is primarily a resource for speech-language pathologists who work with children. However, it includes a number of free resources which focus on spatial concepts, language, and other various topics of interest for your child that can be used by parents and other caregivers, as well.
The Vanderbilt Kennedy Center has printable online resources for parents, professionals, and others about autism and related disorders.
Waterford.org is a website which offers resources and information for parents of children with various learning disabilities and developmental disorders, including ASD. It includes links to printable note cards and activities which focus on social skills and coping mechanisms.