We have had my son's iPad for 2 weeks and he's already shown us things that we had no idea he could do. The first day that we opened it, I set him up with Glow Draw and he drew a happy face! We had never seen him do that before. The iPad is opening up another world for our son. Can't wait to see what else he can do.

I would love one of the iPad packs!

We have been blessed to recieve an iPad for our daughter, Emily. She is 5 years old and on the spectrum. She was non-verbal until the age of 2. She now has mostly echolalic speech. The iPad has allowed her to work with letters, numbers, colors, shapes and she is VERY interested in learning/working with the iPad. It is almost as though a light comes on in her little brain when she is using it. We want to incorporate it into her classroom as a communication/writing device. Her OT and Speech therapists are wanting to give us some ideas for working with her this summer to prepare her for kindergarten. She is still way behind most 5 years old, but makes little gains every day. We are so proud of her. Her brother also has autism, he is 9 and making his way as well. I wish we would have had this technology when he was younger. These apps would help us to move Emily onto some more challenging tasks. She seems to thrive when we raise the bar and have her try new things. We have learned not to limit her and let her try whatever she is interested in. Our hope for her future is great. Thank you for this opportunity!!

Thank you for providing this great page. We have convinced ourselves to scrimp and save for the Ipad for our 5 year old son with autism, and now we will need apps! We believe that it will truly help him with some of the ongoing issues we face daily, particularly transitions and language development. He is crazy about computers, and we just know that he will enjoy learning on the Ipad. We're particularly excited about the visual scheduling, language/speech apps, and the Ipad books. Thank you in advance for considering us!

Robin Vota

We started ABA in December for my nonverbal 14 yr old and I got an ipod itouch last month so we are using somethings from it for the therapy.

The Ipod packs looks great for what we utilize. We are doing toilet training and toothbrushing.

I would also write a review on my site of the apps, tweet and post to FB about them as well.

This would be beneficial for summer time use as we will be teaching how to tie shoes.

Thanks

Bonnie Sayers (autismfamily)

Hello, thanks for putting this site together. I have a five year old daughter who has autism.. She is non verbal and is beginning to become frustrated with her lack of ability to express her thoughts.. I recently just discovered the promise that the iPad offers for children on the spectrum.. We saved and were able to purchase an iPad, unfortunately the cost of the apps is a bit prohibitive.. My wife and I are both educators, with my wife teaching special education.. These apps would benefit my daughter as well as the other children we work with.. Any ray of hope is worth more than I can put into words.. Thank you all again and good luck..

I'd like to request one for a family I work with. They are getting a new ipad through their local LAN for their daughter with ASD - we just told them today!. This family is a wonderful family. This family has two daughters - one that is finally in stages of remission for brain cancer and the other has ASD. The Dad is sick but they are the family that is 1/2 FULL all the time and feel they are truly blessed. I'd like them to have it. If you allow us to get it, I will be glad to supply the families name privately! I already own these apps and they are all wonderful! Thanks for all you do for families!

The iPad has been instrumental to our 4 year old with autism, both for him and us. It has opened new avenues for him To communicate with us and has opened our eyes to his potential. To be honest the first week with the iPad brought my husband and I to tears as we realized just how much we underestimated all that our son knew and what he could someday achieve.

How has the iPad impacted our lives? Where to begin.... I have a 5 year old nonverbalish son. I say nonverbalish because he would gall under the nonverbal category, but every since the iPad(and fabulous new therapists), he has begun to attempt to say so much. Not exactly understandable, but he sure means something. He learned to count on the iPad, to answer yes/no questions(amazing), to make choice on a choice board. His level of anxiety decreases when the iPad is brought out. His therapists love using all the educational apps. I even had a therapist get her own iPad because of how well my little man does. She wanted to help other kids. The iPad gets us through bad traffic, which used to result in meltdown screaming until traffic was moving. It gets us through doctor's appointments without struggle. He's interested in just about anything I put on here. I can't express enough how much the iPad has impacted our(not just his) lives.

My daughter Abby who is 12 right now is still non verbal. We purchased her an iPad the day it came out and since then it has been a life saver and am incredible tool for her. We purchased also right of the bet the Signing Time App (Abby already had the DVD collection and that was a winner too. Abby started to use more signing, not to clear but at least she tried. Finally they have start using her iPad at school, so any App that the school can use in her education would be a win for Abby and the school.

We got an iPad 2 for Noah when it came out, he loved our iPhone and he has one of our old ones as (his most powerfull) renforcer at his ABA program, but we wanted somthing that would be better for him, Larger buttons, he loves to play on the iPad and is one of the few things he will focus on for any amout of time. I would love to get him so good apps to help use the iPad as more of a tool.

I bought my son his iPad about 4 weeks ago. Daily, I am amazed at his increased interest in using it as he has never taken to any of the communication devices the schools have presented to him. As a nonverbal 16 year old, his greatest frustration is getting his message across. However, I am slowly seeing that frustration is melting away as I find more ways to help him "talk" to us using the iPad. I had prepared a page using the Choice Maker app with a selection of fast food places as he likes to go out for french fries. Then I made a page for McDonalds (his favorite) with a choice of menu items. We have used it several times so that he could "tell" me where he wanted to go (and I thought that since that was motivating for him that it would speed up his use of the iPad to communicate to us). The other day he wanted to go to McDonalds and he brought me the iPad!!!! Woo Hoo!!! I am still looking for apps to help him and continue to save up to get some of the more expensive apps. He LOVES the interactive stories as well, and I am no longer surprised when I see him pick up the iPad to use it.

Hi Everybody,
My daughter has had her iPad 2 for about a month now and it is AWESOME! She is so drawn to it. She loves to carry it around to some of the places we go and she looks for it everyday after school. She used to come home from school and ask for her favorite TV show but now she heads straight for the iPad. She just loves the interactive books and learning Apps. There is so much fun stuff for her to do on it. I really like how independent she is on it too. And her time spent is sustained far more than her typical attention span. She laughs and vocalizes. She delights in her personal photos and music list and has control over choosing what she is interested in. She has very quickly learned the locations of items on the touch screen and taps and sweeps with a sense of mastery. The iPad has been a game changer for us. We have a meeting at school with members of her Assistive Technology team and discussing use of the iPad at school will be on the table. In her last IEP we all talked about a continued goal of working on using less verbal prompts. The child is just prompted to death. I would sure like to win one of your iPad App bundles. They both contain iPrompt XL. That would be a juicy App for us to acquire. And the other language Apps hold a lot of appeal as well. I would love to win the iPad bundle #2 for my daughter!

Hi Shane, thanks for the offer. I have a 6 year old son with autism. iPad was the first thing that he calls his own. It has helped him master the alphabets. The FirstWords app was the kick starter. He likes the nursery rhyme apps and the puzzle apps. It was a delight for us when he figured out the rotation feature on the wooden puzzle app and the memory match game on the monkey's playschool app. It would be great to get one of the iPad packs. Thanks again, Ganesh

I don't have a child with ASD but my youngest son does have Down syndrome. He has his own iPod Touch that we use to reinforce a lot of academic and social skills. I am also a special education teacher in a K-4 school, I use an iPad and an iPod Touch with my students with various disabilities (Autism, Intellectually Disabled, Learning Disabled, Speech/language Impaired, ADHD, etc.). Looking at the packs you have to offer, the iPad Packs would be most beneficial for my students at school as many of my students would benefit from them :)

I am a teacher in an ASD unit in a Special School where I teach six students with ASD and Mild GLD. One of my students is non verbal and cannot yet communicate any basic needs at the age of 13. He definitely has the ability and shows great aptitude for technology. I think this is the key to unlocking his communication barrier. He uses my personal iPad in class and is very capable in using it.
His family and I would be very appreciative of such a gift.
Regards,
Leanne Traynor

We have 3 children with Autism. Our oldest daughter, now 18, cannot function without her iPod touch. Not only can she use amazing apps on there, but she uses the music as a self-calming tool. Our boys, 9 and 3, just started using the iPod touch and we cannot believe how easily they have taken to using the apps for communication. Learning words and telling us what they want. It is unbelievable how easily they pickup language from digital therapy. We just purchased an iPad for them, so we can't wait to see how well they respond to it. We can definitely use all the help we can get with apps. Thanks.

We are a family living in Belgium. We have 3 beautiful children: Mauro (7), Quintus (4), Victoria (1). Our eldest son, Mauro, is diagnosed with autism since he was 4 years old. He's going to a special school, we specially have to work on his language because he does not pronounciate that well and not everybody understands what he is saying.

As my husband went to NY, he got an iPad there. He did bring it for us, the parents, because we did not have any idea that it could be that helpfull for Mauro too. It was only after searching for apps and reading some blogs about the apps for autism, that a whole new world opened for him.

So there are a few apps that I use: Autism Xpress, to show the moods he's in. Model Me Going Places, to run through the possible steps before going somewhere. But also, we installed puzzle games, because he really like to puzzle. Coloring games, but also games that need some coördination, are installed, and he really likes to play these games. Also, while playing with the iPad, he also learns to share with his younger brother. He learns how he has to wait for his turn, before he can play.

The biggest help for us, is that when we are in a large group (family, friends), he takes the iPad and sits aside and plays with it, without being bothered by the people or the rumour around him.

And what Mauro likes the most, is movies of himself on youtube. We posted some videos of him on youtube, and with the iPad he's able to look at it whenever he wants. So when he needs to cool down, or we need to calm him and get his mind of something else, we play the video of his school performance and then he is really really proud of himself and singing. You can see him here, he is the first boy on the left of the screen, next to the girl with the red pull. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ztWWSTrcKA

We now have the iPad for 7 months, and with 3 kids in the house playing on it (yes, even the smallest baby already sees how she can "play" with it, how the iPad reacts on her little fingers!), it never broke down! It already fell, had a lot of taps on it, but the system never crashed! I can't imagine that they would be doing that on my laptop, I think my laptop was depressed after a month, and one day later it would be broken! ;-)

So yes, I really like the iPad and it's userfriendliness, especially for our son Mauro. And I think it's really cool that more and more apps are developed for our special children :-) And thanks to blogs like yours, we can discover new apps and help our kids! So many thanks!

We have an Iphone for our son and with it we have opened many doors for him. It has given him a "vocie" finally and he is learning new things daily with all the wonderful apps.

We would love to be able to win the apps for the Ipod touch.

Thank you

I will also give another app. (of the winner's choice) to each of these give-away packs. Winners can contact me or Autism Epicenter and pick what they would like and I will send you a free code to redeem the app. of your choice (Scene Speak, My Choice Board or First-Then Visual Schedule)
:0)

It has made David more willing to want to learn with out me having to make him. He's more willing to compromise to have "iPod time" it has helped him tune out loud noses that he would sit n shake from.

I have to sons with Autism ages 2 and 3. they both received early intervention currently. I've received the iPad2 as a gift to help my sons two weeks ago. I've see so much inprovement in such a little time. They are excited to play with the apps and I heard more words daily. Would love to have more apps that can help my little angels.
Thanks Package II for iPad

Hi, these apps sound amazing and I would love to give them to our cousin.
Our extended family has 5 children with asd. We have 2 daughters with aspergers but our cousin has a severely autisic son. She has an amazing attitude, always seems bright and happy, although she is dealing with many daily challenges. I think these apps would make a real difference to her child in his endeavors to communicate with people, which at present he is unable to do verbally. thanks ( i know his mum has an iphone but unsure if they have an ipad yet.)

I have both the Ipad and Itouch for my son. He uses them everyday. There are some great apps for social education, reading, writing and communication but some are expensive. I do not have any of the great apps in this giveaway and would love to add them to my IPAD.