Compatible with iPhone
and iPod Touch
Expressionist
The first thing you should know is that the developer of Expressionist has not updated this app in a very long time. So it may not be compatible with the latest iOS on your device. That's a big problem.
Expressionist is a brilliant little iPhone app for teaching children with autism common expressions. Just to clear up any confusion, Expressionist is NOT an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) app. It's not meant to be a voice for non-verbal people. In the words of the developer, "Expressionist is designed to help users to express, and to help users to model expressions." In a nutshell, it is intended to help teach autistic children 120 commonly used expressions.
Often times, kids with autism don't read social cues properly, if they read them at all. This app can help them learn how to read those cues, but it can also help them to display those expressions themselves, coupled with words. Among those common expressions are 'I am angry' and 'I feel sick' and 'good morning' and more. 'I love you' is not among them, though I think it should be.
I don't know about your child, but my son doesn't know how to tell us he's mad about something. Instead, he has an autism meltdown while we struggle to figure out how to calm him down and why he's crying, screaming, and kicking. It would be great if he knew how to appropriately express that to us. That's where this nice little iPhone app called Expressionist comes in!
Expressionist features seven categories your expressions are lumped into and each category is shown in a bar across the top of the screen. You cannot add additional categories and you cannot add additional items. But you can edit or change existing sub-items, in certain areas, by adding your own images and recording your own voice. The seven categories are Common Phrases, Feeling/emotion, Senses, Health, Action, Request, and Question.
In order to get to a certain expression you have to pick the category it's under. Then you have to scroll through each and every expression ahead of it until you reach the one you're looking for. That's the only way to get to it. However, I don't view this as a serious drawback because whether you're a parent or a clinician you're likely to want to cover each expression within a given category rather than go directly to a certain chosen one.
Tapping either the right or left edge of the main window advances you to the next expression. And when you tap the edge you'll see a faint blue arrow indicating that. To hear the audio you tap the small box in the bottom center.
As is the English language some expressions are more advanced, and give you choices such as 'I want to eat...' and then you choose what you want to devour. On that screen you are presented with up to 12 food items to choose from. 12 is the maximum. To form a complete expression you'd touch the small box in the bottom center and then immediately tap the food you want. Let's say you want some asparagus. Yes, that is a choice! After tapping the small box in the bottom center and then the asparagus the result would be "I want to eat" - "asparagus." When you tap the asparagus it is enlarged so that it takes up the full portion of the main screen area. Double tap it to go back to the previous screen. You'd use the same procedure on the 'I want to drink' screen.
Expressionist uses a composite picture approach whenever possible rather than multiple pictures. And the developer, AdastraSoft, also uses the same simple cartoon character while manipulating his facial expressions and his gestures to get the point across. That makes these concepts easier to understand, and I think those ideas are central and important.
'Tricycles' and 'vomiting' and 'AA' (as in the battery size) are mispronounced within Expressionist. Some of the expressions are questionable including 'I am choking' and 'I feel like vomiting.' How often does anyone say those things? I also think the artwork could be improved. I noted that lower portions of the cartoon guy, which overlay some images, aren't always removed. These things aside, and the painfully slow email response time from AdastraSoft, I think Expressionist is a good iPhone app for aiding in teaching children with autism expressions. But it could be improved.
