Today we put together a list of the best free apps for special education teachers in the hopes that, with their help, all children, no matter the difficulties they face, will have an easier time in school.
Of course, teachers who are looking to give a helping hand to children with a wide range of disabilities can also take advantage of these Best Resources for Special Education Teachers.
Those who aspire to help children with complex needs, should know in advance that it’s a difficult, but rewarding task. These children need extra support from their educators, or perhaps even an advanced program of learning so they can reach their full potential.
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They may suffer from physical disabilities, sensory impairments, learning difficulties, speech and language issues, autism, mental health problems, or a combination of these. Each individual needs an understanding educator that knows how to overcome any difficulties the task at hand presents in order to properly help.
While all teachers are special and have a lot of work to put in, it’s of the utmost importance that special needs educators are even more prepared. They need to be able to use special equipment and facilities, special skills that will enable them to communicate with each and every student, such as knowing Braille, and more.
Under these circumstances, a little help goes a long way, especially when it comes in the form of technology. For our list today we took a look at several other lists of apps recommended for kids with special needs, from sites such as Masters in special education, The Journal, Autism plugged in, or Early Education Zone. We then checked to see which of these apps overlapped and handed those apps some extra point. Then, we checked to see how popular these were on the Google Play Store and in the Apple App Store, although the latter is practically useless since no one reviews there and the shop itself doesn’t provide too many statistics. Not all of the apps on our list are completely free, but I guess that the price of $3 or less is not something that should kick a good app from this ranking.
The apps with the highest ratings got the most points. Similarly, the apps with the most reviews got the same treatment. In the end, we added all the points and ended up with the final list of the best free apps for special education teachers.
10. ABA Flash Cards Games – Emotions
Score: 7
Created for iPhone and iPad users, the ABA Flash Cards Games – Emotions is a great app to have around, even if your child doesn’t have a learning disability.
The app provides users with over 500 flash cards that will help children read human emotions. This can help them not only understand how others are feeling, but also to express how they themselves are feeling at a particular moment.
Not only does the app provide a simple user interface that makes it easy to interact, but you can also add your own photos to express various feelings and reactions. It also allows users to record their own voices, which makes the tool that much more interesting.
The app costs $0.99.
9. Next Dollar Up
Score: 11
This app, that’s up next on our list of best free apps for special education teachers works for both Android and iOS devices, which means it reaches a lot more people. The tool was built with the purpose of teaching those with special needs to develop independence in money management with an easy concept. It involves looking at an item price and rounding it up to the next dollar before making the purchase.
The purpose of the game is to get ten correct answers. When you get the right answer, the game congratulates you, so there’s the added encouragement to get all the questions right.
The app allows users to choose whether they only want to use bills of up to $5, or if they want to go higher, up to $50. There’s also the possibility of setting up an alternative currency.
8. iReward
Score: 11
iReward is an app that was created for iOS users and which seeks to motivate users to reach certain goals. For this article, this app can be used to reinforce positive behaviors by using visual rewards.
Say you want your child to eat five pieces of fruit each day before they get a candy – you can do that. You’ll add a picture of the reward and mention exactly what needs to be done to get the candy.
This type of praise will help parents and educators deal with children that need the added motivation to do certain things and it works particularly well with special needs kids, given the comments left on the app.
The app costs $2.99.
7. Time Turner
Score: 13
We are continuing our list of best free apps for special education teachers with this app that can be useful to anyone, but given how students with special needs often have difficulties with the concept of time, it will the handiest for them.
For any task you set upon, the Time Turner provides a visual to represent the time left so that it can easily be recognized without needing numbers or really understanding how the clock works, making it ideal for smaller kids too.
In order to set it, you simply have to touch and drag the lines. There are also plenty of customization options, as well as horizontal and vertical display.
The app costs $2.99 and requires iOS 8 and up to work.
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6. Interactive Telling Time
Score: 15
If you want to teach your children the time, this particular app will make it fun, regardless if they’re kids with special needs or not.
What’s great about the app is that you can teach kids both about analog and digital clocks and how to read them. There are several fun and interactive clocks which can be set by kids themselves by simply dragging the hands to a certain location.
The app can be a great tool to teach special needs kids about time, how to set the clock, the differences between AM and PM, and more.
There are two versions of this app – one that’s free and one that costs $2.99. The app can be used by both iOS and Android fans.
5. Miracle Modus
Score: 16
Autistic children often have issues with sensory overload, so this app called Miracle Modus, developed by someone who has been diagnosed with the same condition, seeks to help them mitigate such moments.
The app that’s at the 5th spot on our list of best free apps for special education teachers was created for both iOS and Android devices, and features cute patterns and soothing colored lights. The patterns swirl and twist and move so they help calm you down. Special needs educators can use this very same app to help them better handle such situations with their students.
Even though this is an old app and hasn’t received an update in years, it continues to bring in downloads from everyone interested in coping with those delicate situations. That being said, don’t expect state of the art designs, because it’s far from what you’d expect in a modern app.
4. Pocket Pond 2
Score: 17
Pocket Pond 2 is another app on our list of best free apps for special education teachers that hasn’t been updated in years, but that’s ok because it still works just fine for our purpose – calming down those in a state of sensory overstimulation. It looks like a real pond where you get to touch the fish swimming around you. You can add more koi fish, frogs, turtles, hummingbirds, dragonflies and crabs, enable relaxing sounds and so on. You can even fish in the pond if you want. It doesn’t even need an Internet connection to work, so it’s great for every moment.
The app is completely free to play, with no ads, but you can purchase coins to get more fish and so on. Teachers for kids with special needs can use this tool when they notice their students having a hard time in class and look like they need a short time out.
There are both iOS and Android apps available.
3. Animal Jigsaw Puzzle
Score: 19
Although this particular app that ranks 3rd on our list of best free apps for special education teachers has been singled out by several other lists, pretty much any similar puzzle app should do the job. Jigsaw puzzles help children concentrate on the job at hand, help them picture the result and also test out their logic skills.
Teachers for kids with special needs could use this app to give these kids a helping hand in putting their thoughts in order. The game encompasses not only jigsaw puzzles, but also sliders, rotation and switch puzzles. There are both iOS and Android apps available.
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2. Animoto
Score: 21
Some children may have a harder time communicating face to face with their peers or with adults. Animoto, that is next on our list of best free apps for special education teachers, however, can help them communicate with others in a new way – by allowing them to create videos they can share. The app lets them select a theme, add music, images or videos, captions or text in order to better customize their works.
Teachers can use this app to help their children have some fun while also learning more about technology, and having them warm up to the idea of putting their creativity to work. There are apps for both iOS and Android devices available.
1. Duolingo
Score: 24
Last but certainly not least is Duolingo. The award-winning app is here to help anyone learn a new language by having fun. The app helps users learn over 20 languages, including Spanish, French, German, Russian, Greek, Swedish, and yes, English. Users can practice speaking, reading, listening and writing skills in their own time, which makes this app perfect also for kids that have some sort of speech delay and have troubles with English. Alternatively, it can be great for those kids that have a hard time keeping up in classes where foreign languages are taught and would rather follow their own space in parallel.
Duolingo works both on iOS and Android.
That being said, these have been 10 best free apps for special education teachers.
