I'm writing to tell you about a wonderful invention designed to help kids with Autism Spectrum Disorders and other disabilties. Word of this tool is spreading around the special needs community like wildfire, but more people need to hear about it, and so I write in hopes that you might help --...

I'm writing to tell you about a wonderful invention designed to help kids with Autism Spectrum Disorders and other disabilties. Word of this tool is spreading around the special needs community like wildfire, but more people need to hear about it, and so I write in hopes that you might help -- particularly as we approach Autism Awareness Month in April!

The invention is called iPrompts, and it's an app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. You might think: there are 100,000+ "apps", so why is this one so special?

This one is special because it fills a tremendous need in a really clever way. iPrompts was invented by the family of a 5-year-old boy with autism. It helps parents and other caregivers prompt kids throughout the day using a suite of picture-based templates, like a schedule-maker and a visual countdown timer. Many with autism and other language/behavioral challenges rely heavily on pictures to help them communicate and better understand their environment (you might have seen the recent HBO special about Temple Grandin, a woman with autism who explains what it's like to "think in pictures").

iPrompts makes a great story for several reasons.

1) It's an invention born from necessity -- before iPrompts, parents and therapists everywhere were forced to carry around notebooks and velcro strips filled with printed, laminated symbols, just to go to Burger King or get through a day at school. Not any more!
2) It's an invention born from love -- the parents who invented the app, Dan and Carey Tedesco of Shelton, Connecticut, use it regularly with their son Evan, who has autism. (Evan also happens to be my nephew! :))
3) People have embraced it -- hundreds of copies have been sold at $49.99 each.
4) The story is way bigger than just iPrompts -- Dan and Carey have started whole company, called HandHold Adaptive, with the mission of developing modern, practical, "stigma-free" solutions for those with special needs. iPrompt is the first of dozens of apps they want to build to help this community.

Enough of me telling the story. Hopefully, if you have a few minutes to check out the following links, the power of the story will shine on its own:

* A video of parents and professionals pilot testing iPrompts -- their enthusiasm makes it a must-watch: www.iprompts.com/testimonials/
* Press coverage to date, including a mention in Scholastic Parent and Child, a local TV piece, and the cover of Inventor's Digest: www.iprompts.com/news/
* A video tutorial which explains how iPrompts works: www.iprompts.com/video-tutorial/
*************************************************************************************

Thank you again profusely for taking the time to read this message. I really hope to hear from you.

Allison Tedesco
Outreach Specialist (and proud aunt of Evan!)
HandHold Adaptive, LLC
***********************
Shelton, CT *****
(***) ***-****
allisontedesco@handholdadaptive.com

My daughter is almost 4 and suffers from fatty liver disease, due to an undiagnosed allergy to dairy. She always seemed to be catching colds and viruses when she was a baby. I was told she had asthma due to allergies, and that she was fine. She started to gain wieght rapidly after her first ...

My daughter is almost 4 and suffers from fatty liver disease, due to an undiagnosed allergy to dairy. She always seemed to be catching colds and viruses when she was a baby. I was told she had asthma due to allergies, and that she was fine. She started to gain wieght rapidly after her first birthday and again I'd ask her Dr. but was told she was doing fine there wasn't a problem. By the time she was 2 she weighed 50 lbs. and gaining. again i asked her Dr. to check her weight and he realized that she was off his chart. He refered us to a specialist whom after several tests diagnosed her with non alcholic steatohepatitsis. I was terrified. he explained that through diet control we could help heal her liver. We started with a body mass index close to 29 and now it is down to 23 or so. We go back for a check up on her 4th birthday which is the 20th of April. He also diagnosed her with the milk allergy which had been the cause of it all. i think that it is important for parents to know that there can be serious life altering consequences to undiagnosed food allergies. They need to know that if you feel something is wrong with your child, but your told no it's ok keep pushing the doctor to check again.

My 20 month old daughter was recently diagnosed with an SVT. I took her to our local clinic with a clear runny nose and racing heart and was sent home with a ten day course of antibiotics and told her heart was racing because her body was fighting an infection. The next day, her condition got ...

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My 20 month old daughter was recently diagnosed with an SVT. I took her to our local climic with a clear runny nose and racing heart and was sent home with a ten day course of antibiotics and told her heart was racing because her body was fighting an infection. The next day, her condition got ...

My 20 month old daughter was recently diagnosed with an SVT. I took her to our local climic with a clear runny nose and racing heart and was sent home with a ten day course of antibiotics and told her heart was racing because her body was fighting an infection. The next day, her condition got worse. I took her to our ER and was sent to a city ER, where we found her heart was beating at over 250. She required two doses of adenosine to convert to a regular rythmn. Now, our little Jordan has an enlarged heart, enlarged liver, a leaky valve in her heart and only 44% ejection fraction. As a mom, this is very scary. We have since been sent home and Jordan is on Atenolol. I am in charge of monitoring her heart rate and stopping any future SVT's. We live in a small town of just over 2,000 people and are an hour away from the city. There is little to no support and our cardiologist has been unavailable to answer many of our questions. If you could shed any light on this topic it would be greatly appreciated - signed, scared mom with stethiscope

One thing I have noticed working as a speech-language pathologists is that parents and some doctors are unaware of the normal language development process in children. It would be nice if this show informed parents and doctors the normal signs of language development and show some examples of ...

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