12 Free EdTech Apps For Special Ed Alternate Route Teachers

Social and emotional understanding doesn’t come naturally for some special needs students. That’s why there is a growing number of edtech apps to help boost the emotional learning of youngsters with special needs. In addition to socio-emotional benefits, many of the apps also improve the functional skills of children and young adults in special education programs.  

Special ed and inclusion teachers who work with students of all ages and academic levels can benefit from the apps recommended below. As this is a relatively new market for edtech developers, few operating system agnostic edtech apps exist for special needs students. Many of the apps that have been compiled below are primarily available to Apple users. If you don’t have access to one of the Apple-only apps listed below, contact the developers to let them know of your interest. That said, all of the apps listed below can support students who find the social and emotional demands of the learning environment challenging due to special needs.

Here are twelve highly rated edtech tools for teachers of special education students:

1. SoundingBoard: This free iPhone/iPad app allows students to build and structure communication boards using AbleNet symbols and customized content. Users can record messages and personalize the app’s interface. It is designed for children on the autism spectrum as well as and persons with various disabilities.

2. Peek-a-Zoo: This iphone/iPad app is best suited for children in the early stages of development. This edtech game asks children to evaluate the traits, emotions and behaviors of cartoon animal characters. Preschool teachers can leverage the tool for teaching social cues.

3. Time Timer: Time concepts can be especially challenging for children with special needs. This productivity app helps students better focus on timed tasks, manage transitions and waiting. Available on both iOS and Android,Time Timer displays time as a measurement without the numbers on a traditional clock.

4. ABA – Problem Solving – What does not belong?: This free iPhone/iPad app displays 4 images and requires young children to identify the one item that is different (due to color, name of object, type of object, concept). It is ideal for preschool students.

5. Model Me Going Places: For children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), routine errands such as going shopping can be challenging. It is often the case that students with ASD need to take breaks when engaging in activities outside of their routine or comfort level. Use this free iphone/iPad app as a visual learning aid when teaching students with ASD to remain calm at places like the doctor’s office or grocery store. Each location illustrated in the app contains a photo slideshow of children modeling appropriate behavior.

6. Learn to Speak - I Like Fall:  This free iPad/iPhone app serves as an interactive picture book for students in need of speech therapy. Students can rewrite and record their own stories for the pictures displayed.

7. Autism Emotion: Special ed teachers can use this app to teach students about different emotions. The music and a photo slideshows presented on the app help children and teenagers with Autism and Asperger Syndrome improve their social skills.

8. Conversation Therapy Lite: This free professional speech therapy app targets higher-level expressive language, pragmatic, problem-solving and cognitive-communication goals for older children, teens and adults.

9. Stop, Breathe & Think (Tools for Peace): Promoting mindfulness, meditation, and compassion, this free desktop, Android and iOS app helps middle and high school students better manage their emotions.

10. Finish: Students who are prone to procrastination can benefit from this free iPhone/iPad app. Compared to an average to-do list, this app is designed to elicit feelings of achievement in users when they finish tasks and organizes completed task in an archive. When tasks are marked as complete, users gain a checkmark, along with a nice rewarding sound.

11. Aipoly: Using Artificial Intelligence (AI), this free iPad/iPhone app helps the blind, visually impaired, and color blind better understand their surroundings. Students can simply point their phone at objects of interest and use the app’s AI to recognize objects and colors.

12. Tinycards: This free flashcard app for iPhone and iPad devices helps students memorize hundreds of pre-made study decks on a variety of subjects. It learns from students’ behavior as they progress through a deck and shuffles information around to help them memorize more efficiently.

Special ed and  inclusion teachers can integrate the above listed edtech apps into classroom lessons as well as homework assignments. The visualizations and interactive activities contained in the apps reinforce lessons promoting social and emotional development, problem solving, time management and productivity. With creative application, these apps can be used to enhance and extend classroom lessons into the lives of students beyond the classroom.

How will you use the edtech apps curated above in your special needs classes? Share in the comments below. Stay tuned for our next post highlighting the utility of edtech in ESL/ELL classrooms.