Autism Speaks and Doug Flutie, Jr. Foundation select apps to help people with ASD

Autism Speaks, the world's largest autism science and advocacy organization, and the Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation for Autism today announced technology applications ("apps") to be developed to benefit people with autism as part of the "Hacking Autism" initiative.

In his remarks at the World Maker Faire at the New York Hall of Science today, Phil McKinney, vice president and chief technology officer, Personal Systems Group, HP, announced seven new software applications selected to be built by volunteer software developers this October at the HP Hackathon and offered free to the community.

• Social Stories / Storyboard - This app will allow families and therapists to create social stories on the fly, incorporating templates and examples of this tool which helps a child with ASD to understand a situation and decrease his/her anxiety about an unknown situation, as well as capability to upload and insert custom pictures or photographs. The app will allow the social stories /storyboard to be viewed as a slideshow and/or printed.
• Calendar / Time Management - This app will provide a highly customizable calendar that allows a user to insert their own pictures or photographs for events and reminders. The app will be built with flexibility to act as a reflective calendar so that an individual with ASD or a family member or therapist can document what they did that day. Functionality will also include visual reminders and audible cues for transitions to different scheduled activities or tasks.
• Medical / Progress Journal - This app will provide a consolidated platform for parents, teachers, therapists and other providers to track behaviors, diet and episodes using an upload to the cloud to provide the child's full team with access. Entries can be made to log breakthroughs and other advancements, record therapy sessions and exercises done at home
• Communication - Using a board of symbols and icons, non-verbal individual and those with sensory overload will be able to communicate using this app.
• Safety Skills - Basic safety skills related to basic skills of daily living including crossing the street, riding a bike, water safety in the home and in recreational settings, traffic and fire safety will be taught though visual modeling and social stories
• Bullying - With this app, an individual with autism can alert their teacher, school and parents if they experience a bullying incident and will provide examples of how to deal with bullying through social stories.
• AAC / Communication / F.A.C.E. - This app is based on the concept is that a child or adult using this system can learn the motor plan or motor sequence for each vocabulary word. It is similar to the way our fingers have learned the motor plan for a QWERTY keyboard when we type. When a specific icon sequence is "touched" it always reaches that vocabulary word. Once the word is learned, it is forever more associated with that sequence of touches. Research has found a user doesn't need to visually understand the icons, but can in fact learn the word based on the sequence and how it is taught.

"Hacking Autism" was launched in June 2011 to seek new ideas for technology applications beneficial to people with autism. "Hacking Autism" crowd sourced ideas for applications from all across the autism community, including families and practitioners. As demonstrated by the above concepts, the "Hacking Autism" initiative sought technology-based ideas to open up learning, communication and social possibilities.

The Hacking Autism Advisory Committee, composed of leading technology and autism experts, selected these leading applications from more than 250 submissions received in just two months. "Not only have we seen innovations in technology rapidly advance to provide solutions to improve daily life for individuals with autism," stated Autism Speaks Vice President for Scientific Affairs Andy Shih, Ph.D., "we have seen the tremendous effects of these technologies on language, academic skills, social skills and executive functioning in children with autism."

Two live web chats, which engaged 846 participants, helped shape the selection process and gave additional input to the Advisory Board on the needs and objectives of the community. "The input we received from the community, both suggesting application concepts and participating in the live chats to tell us what's important to them, is a tremendous contribution to accelerate designer and innovator creative thinking," added Simon Wallace, Ph.D., Autism Speaks director of scientific development Europe.

"We encourage developers to join us at the Hackathon in October to help develop technology solutions for the challenges people with autism face every day," said Phil McKinney, vice president and chief technology officer, Personal Systems Group, HP.

"We're excited to see these concepts extended by the greater autism community," said Doug Flutie, co-founder of the Doug Flutie, Jr. Foundation for Autism. "'It's not often that a mom or dad, or a teacher who works with a child with autism, gets to tell a software designer what type of tools they need to enhance their loved one's life. We feel that this type of collaboration has the ability to really improve the learning and communication experience for people on the autism spectrum."