Launching Autista: An app that helps autistic children improve verbal and fine motor skills

Autism is a disorder that arises in children of the age group 2-6 which makes it difficult for them to understand and express what their senses tell them. There are around 10 million children in India suffering from this disorder and the grave part is that the disorder wasn’t recognized by the government as a disability till 2001! There have been efforts to alleviate the problem but lot remains to be done.

Madrat, as a company is driven to create stimulating games for children to help them grow in a wholesome manner. When we came across the problem of Autism, we thought of doing something and it was late in 2012 when we started thinking about a solution. We collaborated with M K Belmonte, a professor of Cornell University, who works on autism technology and a few other luminaries in the space to come out with this app (see press coverage on Indian Express). After more than a year of hard work, we’re ready with the app that has been launched for the iPad.

Autista helps children improve verbal and fine motor skills. Helping kids with speech and touch coordination, Autista takes a different approach that focuses on long term skill building. The app has to be more than a tool for instant communication. Autista has various puzzle modes ‘speaking syllables’, ‘typing words’ and ‘dragging pieces’. Some of the key features of the app are:

• ‘Speak’ mode to help in verbalizing
• ‘Type’ mode to teach keyboard typing
• ‘Play’ mode to join parts for motor skills
• The only App to combine these different modes
• 5 Themes with over 100 learning objects
• Fully customizable for each child’s needs
• Amplitude modulation
• Graded vocabulary with curated words and pictures

Autista was awarded the Game of the Year – Special Mention Award at NASSCOM Gaming Forum 2013. The app is on iPad and can be downloaded for free from the App store.

Download Link: Autista