So, we made an app…

Along our journey thru Autism we have discovered so much, we have learned that our daughters diagnosis has opened many doors to recovery, we have learned that diet is radically important, we have learned that no matter the severity of a child with Autism they can all improve and we have learned that many of them thrive with technology! Lindsey especially loves her tablet, she will answer questions, complete chores and achieve therapeutic goals all for “tablet time”.

Now she enjoys Youtube Kids as her first choice but a few years ago she simply enjoyed the manipulation of learning games. Unfortunately, although the games were colorful, animated and quite helpful they also created hurtles for success. Many of the mainstream games had both positive and negative reinforcement, and Lindsey was more entertained by the negative reinforcement than the positive - meaning many of the objectives were not completed properly or in many cases not at all. This was one hurtle, the other was that each “game” or “app” tended to focus on one specific skill set, there were very few choices that allowed for cross platforms, so she would get bored with it after a while.  

I started daydreaming about creating a game that had all the “good stuff” and none of the “bad”. After drawing a blueprint of what I thought could be a good idea, I spoke with Lindsey’s teacher. Her teacher was most certainly an expert in the field with degrees in special education and hands on experience in the classroom. We embarked on a wild dream of actually creating this , I had a good grasp on the flow and concepts and she merged the application so that it would reflect classroom and therapy goals. It was a challenge to find the right team and produce the game, especially on a shoe string budget, but the industry professionals we met saw value in this concept too.

It took us more than two and a half years to develop all 10 worlds and incorporate all of our objectives: spelling, handwriting, shapes, colors, math, math readiness, spatial differentials, matching, puzzles and so much more. In the end we were proud to release Little Turtle Learning Tools “Tommy the Turtle: Color Splash”. Now we feel we have contributed one more tool for parents, teachers and therapist to use while helping these kids achieve their best.

I sincerely hope that if any of you have something that you want to contribute to this community that you don’t hesitate, try your best to find a way to succeed. The special needs community really is quite special, the parents I have met during our 4+ year journey have been so supportive and armed with such fantastic information, together we really do make a difference!