For kids with special needs, the idea of heading back to school is both fun and fraught. Keeping up with academics, staying on top of tasks, and managing relationships each offer challenges and opportunities. Apps can help.
Use the recommendations below to help kids practice skills, from reading and math to making friends. Check out these tools to see which ones might help boost your kid's success this school year.
Beginner
Kid in Story Book Maker
Age recommendation: 4+
Use this app to help prepare kids for all kinds of situations by placing a picture of your kid right in a virtual social setting. It's especially good for kids on the autism spectrum or with anxiety, but it's great for all kids who might benefit from a little preview of what's to come when they get to school.
Kiko's Thinking Time
Age recommendation: 4+
With this adaptive set of games and exercises, kids practice a variety of skills such as spatial reasoning, short-term memory and focus. Developed with the help of neuroscientists and with research about executive function, it targets very specific skills in a kid-friendly way.
Dexteria Dots
Age recommendation: 5+
Visual cues and adaptive activities make this unique math-practice app a good choice for a wide range of learners. Though it mostly deals with basic concepts, it can help kids build fluency as they move on to more complex math.
Morning Kids
Age recommendation: 6+
This personalized task list helps kids with everyday routines such as getting ready for school or preparing for bed. Kids with attention issues or executive functioning challenges will love assigning their own pictures and sound effects to each activity and taking ownership of the process.
Intermediate
DragonBox Algebra
Age recommendation: 5+
This app presents algebraic concepts in a unique way and is good for a range of ages. Though it plays like a game, kids can begin to understand the abstract concept of "solving for x," which can be difficult for linear thinkers.
Dyslexia Quest
Age recommendation: 7+
Visual memory and phonological awareness (understanding the sounds that make words) are critical for reading, and this app uses games to help assess where kids might be struggling in these areas. Not only do parents get detailed data, they also can use the app to help bolster those weaker areas.
Choiceworks Calendar
Age recommendation: 8+
Creating a visual map of routines can help kids, especially those with executive function challenges, keep track of what they should do next. With personalization and various ways to view a schedule, kids can take more responsibility for what they need to do and ease anxiety they might have around changes and transitions.
If... The Emotional IQ Game
Age recommendation: 8+
As kids play this adventure game, they'll get lots of positive messages and practice around social-emotional skills. Because the learning content is fully baked into the game, kids will have fun while they play through the story.
Advanced
ModMath
Age recommendation: 7+
ModMath helps kids input problems onto virtual graph paper and lines them up correctly, and it's especially helpful as math becomes more complicated and equations have more components.
For kids with dysgraphia (writing challenges such as handwriting and getting ideas on paper) or other special needs that might make writing math problems difficult, this app can help eliminate errors that are a result of not being able to write the problem neatly by hand.
ConversationBuilderTeen
Age recommendation: 13+
This app features all kinds of tween- and teen-centered topics including sarcasm, bullying and sex. Kids can practice choosing appropriate responses with virtual peers, while parents can customize the topics and specifics of the conversations to really target the areas in which a kid needs to practice.
Popplet
Age recommendation: 13+
For kids who have trouble getting started on projects or papers, this tool can help them make visual maps and organize their ideas. Kids can also use it to collaborate on projects with others and incorporate different kinds of media, which is helpful for visual learners.
Remember the Milk
Age recommendation: 13+
Keeping track of assignments, after-school activities and social engagements can be difficult, especially for kids with attention and executive function issues. This app helps kids break long-term projects into chunks, set alerts and prioritize tasks to decrease the chances of getting overwhelmed.
Originally published by Common Sense Media, written by Christine Elgersma
