TOBY Autism Therapy is a comprehensive app specifically designed for early intervention for children on the autism spectrum. TOBY stands for Therapy Outcomes By You. TOBY offers a highly detailed guide to support parents to achieve early intervention goals. There are activities for over 50 goals for children in the areas of imitation, language, sensory and social skills.

 

TOBY was developed by a team of autism professionals including Speech Pathologists, Clinical Psychologists and Computer Scientists from Curtin University (Western Australia) and Deakin University (Victoria). TOBY has been supported by Autism West, a not for profit parent organisation in Western Australia.  TOBY is one of the rare apps which has been trialled by real families and has shown positive results in research conducted at Curtin University, Perth, and Deakin University, Victoria. Summaries of this research and further information is available at the website www.tobyplaypad.com.

 

TOBY Playpad is a cost effective, revolutionary new approach to Early Intervention for children with autism.

 

The child starts with a tutorial on how to use the iPad for pointing and dragging activities.

 

Visual matching: The child matches objects which look the same (size, colour, shape) or are the same type of object (matches all the cars or all the blocks).

 

Auditory matching: The child matches the two sounds which sound the same. These include everyday sounds (telephone ringing) and real words.

 

Motor Imitation: This means copying the actions of others. Activities include whole body tasks (jumping, waving),hand movement tasks (pushing a car or drawing) and movements needed for blowing noses and speech sounds.

 

Joint attention: This means that the parent and child focus on the same object together. They alternatively look at the object and then check the face of each other. Children are taught how to understand and also use eye contact, gestures and words to direct another person’s attention to something that they’re interested in.

 

Comprehension: The child follows basic instructions and learns the meaning of things (animals, body parts, clothes, everyday objects, food and toys).

 

Using Spoken Words: The child learns to name objects in their environment (animals, body parts, clothes, everyday objects, food and toys).

 

One of the things I like most about TOBY is that it encourages parent to apply the learning from the app in normal, everyday routines. These are called Natural Environment Tasks. These are vital for generalisation of new skills for children on the spectrum.

TOBY Autism Therapy is a researched based tool which aligns itself with current evidence based practice in autism spectrum disorders. The app uses prompting and Natural Environment Tasks.

Children involved in a range of authentic learning opportunities. On the iPad, they point and match and imitate. But it is in the Natural Environment Tasks that the child can apply this new learning and create their own experiences in language and social skills.

Feedback is positive and encouraging and designed to result in improved performance. TOBY includes star rewards which lead to a token feedback system. There is a notable absence of negative feedback which exists in other apps. Results are available in graph form so parents can track their child's progress. These can be uploaded to a server.

TOBY is completely customisable. The parents sets the goals and activities for TOBY based on their child's individual learning needs.

The help and support available for parents is one of the best features of this app. There are several videos and plenty of detailed information. This does take a while to read but this is an essential part of learning new skills for your child.

There are plenty of opportunities for learning and fun with TOBY. The app itself is a guide with lots of interesting activities. The real fun begins during the Natural Environment Tasks.