These apps are super fun and great for teaching a variety of skills to kids with autism. I have put them in no particular order.

• Daniel Tiger’s Grr-Ific Feelings: Many kids on the autism spectrum struggle to understand emotions, pick up on nonverbal cues of emotion, and understand how to regulate their emotions. This app allows children to play a turn taking trolley game where they work on skills to regulate emotions, understand and identify emotions, draw about their emotions, watch short videos about emotions, and even take pictures of themselves with a specific emotion. It is packed with lots of fun!
• Sesame Street: Breathe, Think, Do: This is another app that really focuses on emotional regulation. Sesame Street has taken 5 situations where a child may be upset and teaches them to breathe and calm down, think of a solution, and then follow through with that solution. The animated videos are fun and engaging while teaching such important skills!
• Mr. Potato Head: This app is great for such a variety of reasons- I love using it with kids who are learning to express new langauge concepts such as body parts, jobs/occupations (clown, pirate, witch, cowboy, etc.) as well as having beginning conversations about what Mr. Potato Head is doing in the fun scenes or taking a picture of him. All ages enjoy this app!
• Toy Story Theater: I love the story-telling feature in this app. So many kids with autism do not have great play skills and this app lays out a story and then has the kids “act it out” with the characters and props. It is so much fun to save Woody from the Aliens or stop the tornado with Buzz’s laser gun…the possibilities are endless…
• Timbukto Pizza: Who doesn’t love to eat pizza? In this app, you design funny pizzas by following the directions/recipe (that you are supposed to remember) and if you do it well, the monster will eat it all up…but if you do it wrong, he will throw the pie at you! Either way, you can take a picture as the pizza chef!