Developed by AssistiveWare, the makers of Proloquo2Go, Pictello is a universal iPhone app for social stories. Autistic children often have problems with transitions and social stories come in very handy with making any transitions much easier on children as well as parents. And Pictello embodies everything a social stories app should be. No more cutting out pictures and gluing them into a booklet. The iPhone can do it much easier and faster with Pictello!

Making your own social story couldn’t be easier. You can do it with Pictello’s Wizard or their Expert mode. Wizard mode guides you through the process quickly and easily and it doesn’t bother you with the details, just the meat. Expert mode lets you make all the decisions including which transitions to use and inputting author information.

In Pictello you can edit stories, create new stories, share stories, export stories; I think you get the picture. Pictello is a complete app for social stories, much like Proloquo2Go is a complete app for augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). The interface is well-designed and pleasing to the eye.

You can record your own voice for each picture. But as a nice bonus feature within Pictello, you can have the app say your typed words in a social story by using Text-to-Speech instead if you like. Choose either a male or female voice. And, like Proloquo2Go, Pictello is loaded with useful settings you get to control. Those settings include the speech rate, pronunciation, backup, transitions, and much more. If your autistic runt is like mine, and has fidgety fingers, you can set Pictello so it doesn’t allow editing. That prevents any unwanted, accidental changes to the social stories.

Another nice little bonus feature I just briefly mentioned above is that you can export your created stories. In the words of AssistiveWare, “Stories can be shared using iTunes File Sharing or via WiFi with other Pictello users through a free account on the Pictello Sharing Server.” Wow! That’s what I call giving the power to the people!

I had previously stated that it would be fantastic if Pictello supported VGA out so kids could use the iPad or iPhone to connect up to a projector to tell a story in the classroom. Pictello now does even that!

Packed with features, easy to use, and pleasing to the eye, Pictello easily gets 5 stars from Autism Epicenter!