When our three year old son was diagnosed with autism we struggled to find apps that were appropriate for his age and ability. In addition, he was only attracted to games that were visually and audibly stimulating.
The inspiration for the Meet My Family came from two places. Firstly I wanted our son to start making associations with family members and our names. For example, he had no idea that the sound of the word “mommy” actually related to his actual mother. He couldn’t even make the link between the sound of her voice and the person. The second source of inspiration was a TED talk where I learned about people who were born blind and gained their sight at a later age. They were typically “taught to see” through a series of photographs, but it was discovered that videos helped them to learn more quickly. So the core features of Meet My Family became the association of people’s voices with photos, reinforced by videos which also served the purpose of being rewarding.
Read our story in the Jersey Evening Post
I gradually developed Meet My Family, testing regularly and enhancing the areas our son didn’t respond to. The result is an app that has maintained his interest for the last three years, and I hope that the ability for parents to easily change the content means that he will remain interested.
I am now making Meet My Family available to everyone, and I hope your child will get as much enjoyment from it as ours has. It comes with 4 cartoon characters as a demonstration, but you should be able to replace these with your own family members in a matter of minutes.
Download it for free on the App Store
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