Grace App and World Autism Awareness Day
World Autism Awareness Day was Saturday 2nd April 2011. My apologies to anyone who missed out on picking up the Grace App for free.
Everybody deserves the right to say what they want. Listen and you will also get to know what they like and need, and maybe get to know them a bit better.
The App is free today for World Autism Day, and updated!
Many kids with autism or speech delay use “pecs” a system of pictures attached to a board to ask for what they need or say how they feel. These boards are stored in a book which they have to carry around with them.
Even if and when they begin to say a few words, they may be difficult to understand and so they need the pictures as a back-up, as their independent speech develops. As the mother of a severely autistic little girl with a few words but many pictures, I wanted to keep prompting her to use her own voice – while bringing ALL her pictures everywhere.. so I created the Grace App.
Grace App replicates the picture exchange system by storing a basic picture vocabulary in simple to access folders with a facility for building a semantic sentence.
It can be used on iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. On the smaller devices you tilt and the cards are enlarged for you to point and read together. On iPad the pictures are big enough to be read easily without enlargement. You can take and add your own photographs or images, download, save or transfer pictures that you already have. You can encourage the user to do this independently. Giving them the power over their communication choices.
It is a simple and portable means of prompting communication and mutual understanding - which leads to trust.
To celebrate World Autism Awareness we have set the App to free on the iTunes store.
You can also join our Facebook page for more information and support. Grace App was created with the support of O2 Telefonica and developed by Steve Troughton-Smith for iOS.
Support the drive for collecting old 3G iPhones and iPods/iPads at The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism -including our own MyCharity Link.
Blog updated to include the fact that World Autism Day was last Saturday 2nd April. Sorry if you missed out. Please join the Facebook page for news of further offers, next year.
Watch this space for the new manual with updated operating instructions and steps to introducing Augmentative Communication or email me on Graceappforautism@gmail.com for a copy.
World Autism Awareness Day was Saturday 2nd April 2011. My apologies to anyone who missed out on picking up the Grace App for free. Please join the Facebook page for news of further offers, and updates on next year’s World Autism Awareness Day.
Thank you so much. Would never have been able to get this if not for your generosity.
It is showing free already? Thanks!
absolute pleasure. Keep an eye on the App store button for the symbol that shows we have our update ready. It will have category sorting, better graphics (I did the originals myself!)
and better iPad view.
It will also be a double tap to remove cards – so kids don't erase them while pointing.
Best wait for the improved version to upload before teaching it to a user.
And of course, once you own the App, all updates are FREE!
I saw your post on many hats mommy and wanted to know if you'd like to post a similar guest post on my blog http://www.actingbalanced.com – I think what you are doing tomorrow is fabulous!
Hi I am having trouble downloading it keeps telling me the app is bring modified. Do you know if others are having the same issue.
This is not showing as free for me. What do I need to do?
Thanks!
ive just noticed that my post time is april 1st, 10pm? (must be west coast, USA time)
hopefully the app will be available in 2 hours????
HI Everyone – so sorry but it slipped back to paid in the night and I have only just found out. It will be free again, just trying to wake my developer (who works nights) and get it fixed. Please be patient. Subscribe and I will do a new post as soon as it is fixed.
Really Really sorry. It actually went free a day early, so perhaps that was the problem.
Hold on – it will be back! xx
So Annoying! I am REALLY Sorry.
Don't click yet – something happened and it slipped back to paid in the night!
Just subscribe or watch the blog/facebook and when I can wake my developer we will get it switched back to FREE again.
Really REALLY! Really sorry about this. It actually went free a day early so perhaps that was the issue. Thanks for letting me know. xx
Thanks! This is great! I was able to download free now.
It is asking me to pay 37.90 is the promotion over?
When we find the app in the app store, it says FREE, but when we click to install it says $37.99. =(
Dear Ashfork and Mike – it was always meant to be free on App Friday and World Autism Day. It actually set to free a day early!
A much awaited update was approved by Apple – coincidentally late on April 1st and it put us back to paid by accident.
This affected Australian Users as they were the first ones awake on World Autism Day 2nd April – so when we managed to reset it to free we added on a few hours to make it up to them.
This gave the rest of the world a few extra hours too – bringing it in to Sunday.
Any issues with it showing free until you clicked on it were to do with your iTunes account. You might need to do a re-boot or update your software.
Over 5,000 people were able to get it for free during the 3 days and over half of them have updated to 2:0 by now. I hope they are enjoying it. BE sure to email me if you have any issues or need help. I carry my iPhone around with me and can usually answer you straight away.
graceappforautism@gmail.com
Happy World Autism Awareness Folks – see you again in 364 days!
xx
The App is free today, and updated!
It is still saying on the site the message above?
I am sure others will be confused by it as well.
It's still not showing free for me. I have an autistic son and would love to be able to use this app.
Dear Ashfork and Kaitylin, I have changed the wording of the blog post to make it clearer that World Autism Awareness Day was Saturday 2nd April.
I'm sorry if this was confusing for you. Best Wishes, Lisa
I just want to thank you so much for providing the Grace application for free on World Autism Awareness Day. I have since downloaded the update for free as well. I do ABA therapy with young children and this is the best thing I've seen for scheduling events. The updated version has everything I want and need.
Your generosity is appreciated all over the world!
Alison
Melbourne
Australia