The TOBY app for iPad continues to transform the lives of children with autism as more parents across the globe are becoming empowered to begin early intervention therapy.
TOBY is teaching parents to teach their child 52 basic cognitive, communication and social skills in the comfort of the family home.
Available on iTunes, TOBY delivers a dynamic curriculum offering 30 onscreen and 300 real world activities whilst recording results and generating reports based on performance.
TOBY has recently been formally recognised by renowned medical research organization Telethon Kids Institute as an effective complement to community therapy following their recent independent clinical trial. Children using TOBY showed improvement in the development of overall adaptive functioning, particularly in the areas of visual reception and fine motor skills. In addition 74.5% of parents in the TOBY group felt moderately or in full control of their child’s early intervention therapy.
The TOBY app was an initiative of Curtin University Professor Svetha Venkatesh in collaboration with not for profit organization Autism West. Professor Venkatesh, now the Director of PRaDA – Pattern Recognition and Data Analytics – at Deakin University, said the program was not designed to replace one- on-one therapy but had brought cost-effective and evidence based therapy techniques into the home. This is particularly vital while children are on waiting lists to receive speech and occupational therapy and is also a useful way to complement therapy a child may be receiving at home.
“The program is unique as it has its own curriculum based on developmental behaviours which help the child to learn more than 50 skills both on and off the iPad. TOBY then tracks a child’s progress through its user-friendly recording system and regularly updates goals and lesson plans based on their performance each day”.
TOBY is designed for children:
- With a diagnosis, or at risk of a diagnosis of autism
- Communicating mostly through gestures, behaviours (such as hand leading, bringing items), sounds, single words or early two-word phrases.
- Able to sit and focus for a short period of time (up to 10 minutes)
- Needing help with early social and play activities
- TOBY’s activities can be easily transferred into a child’s everyday life and can be used in a range of settings eg. within the home, at the park, at grandparent’s houses, or in the car or supermarket
- Therapists can use TOBY to complement current intervention goals
- Teachers can use TOBY in classroom and playground settings to help individuals and groups of children achieve learning success.
- A typical day with TOBY might include time on the iPad for a total of 20 minutes, and a similar amount of time doing other TOBY-directed tasks that weave into daily routines and the child’s play interests.
- Based on TOBY’s recommendations, parents choose tasks to complete with their child each day and based on the child’s results, TOBY will generate suggestions for the following day’s activities.