A couple of weeks ago, my daughter Grace lost her iPhone. Grace is a 15-year-old with a diagnosis of autism and a severe speech delay. Some people would call her “non-verbal” but she can say a few words and if people don’t understand she shows them a picture.
When Gracie was small, she used to have to carry a big book around to hold these pictures, but then the iPhone was invented and a very kind person gave us one to try. I was able to transfer all her pictures onto a folder on that phone and whenever we didn’t have a picture, we could take a photograph and add that to her collection. Grace is considered to have an intellectual disability but she had no trouble navigating that iPhone, and she carried it around with her everywhere in an especially strong cover to protect against accidents.
With the help of a young Irish gaming developer called Steve Troughton-Smith, I was able to create an App to store and sort those pictures and in honour of my daughter, he called it Grace App.
The start of a lovely initiative to donate old iPhones to children with autism. The organisation restores any iOS 6-capable iPhone or iPad to factory settings, loads the Grace application, puts them a tough, donated case, and gives them to a child who uses it to greatly expand his or her communication abilities. It shows just how important technology like smartphones has become for people with disabilities or other problems. It can enable some of them to lead much richer lives, and that really puts a huge smile on my face.
The application Grace is available for both iOS and Android, so if you know someone who could benefit from it – let them know.
As title says but not all the world speaks or understands english and why ios 6? There are hundreds of low cost android devices for this reason even the latest quadcore can be found for 1/10th the cost of an ios 6 device O.O
P.s Not promoting anything here
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Elephone-P6000-Smartphone-4G-LTE-Android-…
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Original-lenovo-lemo-K3-K30-W-4G-Smartpho…
Edited 2015-04-01 18:39 UTC
It’s available in French, German, Spanish, Danish, Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, and English.
http://www.graceapp.com/guide-to-grace-app/
You can’t realistically expect a project like this to support every language off the bat. They’ll need to generate some revenue to reinvest in expanding to new languages.
30 euro price tag kinda makes you question their good will. I would love to try this but I’m not paying that much beforehand.
This is very common for AAC software. Cheap even. The top of the line stuff (TouchChat) costs $300. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/touchchat-hd-aac-wordpower/id4123515…
Fact is this is a niche market. If you want to sustain a company developing these apps you need to charge a lot. This is still way better than the $15,000 the dedicated hardware to do the same thing cost just a few years ago.
Sure, I’d agree in the same sense that I’d agree you don’t sell a cheap piece of ten cent plastic from japan for eleven cents.
Just don’t try to sell me on some sob story about one’s altruism and love for children at the same time. Other people banking on the misfortune of others isn’t going to make doing so to a lesser degree somehow moral.
hm… I see 30 USD on iTunes, but 10 USD on Google Play. And their website hardly mentions Android. I wonder if the two versions are the equivalent, and if so, why priced so differently?
Because Apple users are conditioned to pay more.
No, wrong. The answer is clearly listed on the web site if you care to read the comments on the Android release announcement:
There you go…. Android app is the way it is because the Android app isn’t at the same level and the developer expects to be paid to develop the newer version.. so the issue is really Android and the Android eco system.
The app runs on every Android version since 2.1.
You can buy a brand new Kitkat phone or tablet for less than $50. Hundreds of millions of older versions are worthless.
Why would you even bother with iOS?
Because the Android app is at version 1.0, the iOS app is at version 3.0 is more advanced and the Android developer is working much more slowly on updating the Android app… I guess, if you’re an Android developer you could offer to update the app for free and give them a level playing field? It’s a worthy cause. If not, I guess you should stop complaining and raise the money they need to pay the current developer to do the work. Developers need to eat too.
Because iphone performance is well known and standard. I’m not saying its better or worse than Android performance, just that its a known quantity on a specific well known device.
For persons with autism spectrum disorders, you want everything to be as friction-less as possible. With Android, there is a wide variance in performance from one phone or tablet to another.
I am not a medical professional, and can not evaluate the benefits or drawbacks of this kind of treatment, but if it is of some benefit then with what I understand of Autism and technology, I would recommend an ios device.
As far as the cost? When it comes to medical equipment or treatment, evaluating dissimilar devices with different therapeutic benefits is not an easy calculation that should be solely determined by initial cost of ownership.
Edited 2015-04-02 14:28 UTC
It is actually 30 euros not $30.
Says 20 euros on the website
TBH i thought the app to be free in any os WTF!
Donate me your phones but pay for the app to work on them lol