Compatible with iPhone
and iPod Touch
AutismTrack
An iPhone web app, AutismTrack is intended to help parents and/or professionals easily keep track of daily interventions or therapies and behaviors. A "web app" is an app that only works when an internet connection is available, much like a web page. That means when you aren't connected to 3G service or Wi-fi this app cannot be used. That's not a big issue for iPhones, but it's a much bigger issue for the iPod Touch. Me? I'm not a big fan of web apps in general because I use the iPod Touch and I feel like I only get partial use of web apps because I don't have an internet connection when I'm out and about. When I buy an app I want full use of it. HandHold Adaptive gave me AutismTrack free of charge, by-the-way, so I did not have to pay for it.
The way AutismTrack allows you to keep track and log behavior data is very subjective. What I mean is; How do you determine what percentage of the day your child was stimming? 43%? 49%? Maybe you'd go with 67%. That's really tough to determine unless your child always stims or never stims, in which case you're probably comfortable going with 100% and 0%. And, also, in which case you won't need to track that behavior. Don't get me wrong! I think AutismTrack is a fantastic idea, it just needs some refinement before it's really useful.
In addition to a help screen, AutismTrack has four basic screens; Person/Day, Interventions, Behaviors, and Review. Once I was on the "Behaviors" screen I adjusted the sliders for Attentiveness, Echolalia, and Eye Contact. Then I decided to add my own custom item. When I added my item the sliders for all the other things returned back to 0% as though I had never moved them. But I had moved them. Now I had to move them again and remember where I had them. Every time I add a custom item all the sliders return to 0%. That's a bug in the code.
Also, if you don't move a Behavior slider it remains at rest on 0% which is labeled as 'Least Desirable'. The opposite end of the slider is 100% or 'Most Desirable'. That doesn't make sense to me. Let's take Echolalia for example; If my son doesn't exhibit any echolalia today my natural inclination would be to not move the slider at all. As AutismTrack is set up now, that would indicate he did 0% echolalia and that it was least desirable. But, in fact, 0% echolalia is most desirable. 100% should be Least Desirable. HOWEVER, I recognize that echolalia is a negative behavior. If I was talking about Eye Contact then, indeed, 100% would be most desirable. Perhaps dividing up Positive and Negative behaviors to avoid this kind of confusion? That way, anything I didn't slide from the left is marked as Most Desirable and graphs appropriately.
The check boxes on the "Interventions" screen are very small and hard to check. I find myself retapping the box again and again until it's finally checked. It'd be nice if tapping that particular row would check the box. That'd make it much easier.
Another small gripe; When on the "Person/Day" screen each person's birth date is formatted year-month-day, all in numbers. It'd be nice if it was formatted like May 3, 2002. That's month (spelled out), 2-digit day, and 4-digit year.
When you start AutismTrack it will ask you to register for access. This is because the app needs to establish a connection to their servers. In order to do this you have to agree to HandHold Adaptive's User Agreement and enter your email address and password. OK, no problem. But I've found that I have to register nearly each time I start the app, which is irritating. My email address isn't short either. And I have to keep typing it in. I'm also not told that the email address I type in is the only one the app will send emails to. It'd be nice if I could change that to send to ANY email address. The app also shows my password when I'm typing it in. That info should display as asterisks for privacy.
I've noticed that I'm able to change the date to a future day and enter information. I'm not sure why I'm given that ability.
HandHold Adaptive knows what they're doing and there are plenty of things I like about AutismTrack. This is the first release and I'm confident this app will be worked to perfection in the future much like their other app, iPrompts. But until then, you'd be wise to avoid it.
