Webinar Summary

Webinar: Executive Functions and Apps

Students with executive dysfunction have a deficit in the frontal lobe of the brain. The frontal lobe can be compared to a CEO of a company or the conductor of the band. When there is difficulty in the frontal lobe it causes the person to have difficulty organising themselves and executing tasks in a timely and organised way. Key components of executive function involve focus, direction, time management, prioritising and regulating behaviour. Time management involves planning, prioritising, working memory, organising your thinking, controlling emotions, sustaining attention., adaptability, reacting to change and the ability to store, retrieve and put things into action. Overall it boils down to regulating the person's ability to think and do.

In a classroom the teacher is often the CEO and is directing the lesson and the class. He or she cues students, mediates, scaffolds and provides students with step by step instruction/direction. It is like they are the surrogate frontal lobe. Students often begin to exhibit difficulty once they are to work independently. Here is where using Apps can to foster independence can set students up for success.

The following is a brief overview of the apps that were introduced in the webinar:

Colorful aquarium is a good app for calming down. It soothes the user and takes their mind off of previous problems. You can feed the fish and watch them eat so it is interactive as well. It could also be used as a reward.

Tools for Students is an app for planning and prioritizing, as in graphic organizers. There are 25 templates to initiate and plan ideas. You can use voice to input so it is great even for those who have trouble writing. It saves automatically and it can be emailed to teacher. You can summarize, sequence, use KWL chats, compare and contras all for 99 cents.

Reminders is an app that is free. It has a calendar and you can do notes and more information such as times and reminders, which will pop up. It is just a good simple organizer

Take a Chill is a stress reduction app focusing on adolescence to help students to take a moment to calm or ground themselves before beginning a task. You need to be able to read so it would not be good for early readers. It has “stop and take a moment” component which explains how to stop and regroup to get ready to continue.

It gives you a “Daily Dose” which are strategies to get through your day. You can take a stress inventory to track your stress and it gives you an idea of how much stress you have at that moment. It gives you some options and things you might consider to calm down. It provides stress resources and links and has a journal to record your feelings.

Let Panic Go is a good app for panic attacks or heightened stress. It is for students who read well and have good working memory. You have to read and process at the same time. This app is $2.99 and would be for higher elementary students to adults. It has a breathing regulator where you touch the screen when you are exhaling and it tracks your breaths. It asks you how you are feeling. If you say “good” it gives you some tips to move on, if not, you can continue. It has a running commentary which helps you to calm down.

Balloon Pop, Yoga and other apps help with calming. Specific students can choose which ones work best for them.

Sound Curtain is an app that helps to sustain attention. It is acoustic masking. It adjusts sound output to the sound in the environment. Headphones play and mask with ambient sound. It helps drown out environmental sound. You can choose between rain, wind and music to enhance attention, reduce distractibility and focus.

The Ibook Store offers enhanced books. Such as Life on Earth. Students who need to be engaged more than a they are with a regular text or what is on the board or a handout sheet would love Ibooks. Students can interact with pictures in the text by manipulating them. Companies will also be able to update their books very easily and send out updates to the text books. You can see the text, hear it and interact with it. Students will pay attention and be more engaged. This is an example of universal design for learning UDL.

Timers traditionally were expensive and lost and would run out of batteries. This app is 99 cents. It can travel with the student and cannot be broken or lost. It helps with time management and time tracking. It is great for students with ASD to help them learn to wait and for anyone to understand time. It looks like a simple clock with a visual to show remaining time.

Student Life Organizer is a calendar type of app that can add dates, courses and tasks for various courses. This would be for Jr or Sr high students.

Each device comes with a built in calendar. It is an on-board app which looks like a daily planner. It shows day view, week, month and year. It is easy to use and easy to apply. It is easy to keep yourself organized. You can also use picture scheduler or Photomind where you can add pictures to your calendar.

Wait Strip is a reward app for completion of tasks or target behaviors. It is similar to a penny chart. You can customize colours etc. When a task or behavior is complete you tap the circle and when the last one is done you get video and audio feedback.

iReward Chart is a good app for younger children with ADHD or ASD for rewards. You can set it to be very specific and you can add multiple children and include photos of children. You can choose pre-listed rewards but you can add specific rewards. You can assign a certain number of stars to get this reward. Student can set up the reward menu. You can check the balance sheet to see how many were earned and what rewards were taken.

Develop social stories with videos that students can refer to it on a mobile device. One example is Pictello. You can import video and use text to speech. It can teach in role playing to prepare students to respond or to hold back when needed. You can download social stories from the internet and add in personalized pictures. It can be read out loud to students when it is ready.

Social Skills Sampler has free social stories that are in the form of a video modeling story. They can be used as jump off points so you can talk further about related scenarios.

Book Creator and Ibook Creator also allow you to create your own stories and you can put them on the book shelf for easy future access.

Shredder (99cents) allows you to write a negative thought and shred it to represent letting the thought go. It gets the thought out and gets a giggle and a positive reaction.

Calm Counter has a social story to start. It shows you how to deal with stress and calm down, one step at a time. It counts back from 10 with a picture of a mad face getting calmer as you count down. It would be a great tool to calm down a student who was getting upset.

Inspiration App is good for task initiation. It has templates and graphic organizers for many tasks. It helps initiate an idea as the beginning part of the output. It can be customized in a variety of ways. It is like a living, flexible graphic organizer that is easy to use and produces a fun yet professional looking product.

Worksystem is a new, free app which is a text based visual schedule. It breaks down the day into manageable chunks. You can make a visual schedule for any individual. This app would be great for learning centre where you had to produce schedules or task strips for students in many different settings.

Sock Puppets is an app where you can pick characters and backgrounds. It allows students to role play. Sock puppets mouths move as the person talks. You can save the shows and students can work at improving on their flexibility and adaptability. It would be motivating and fun but is a great way to program.

Games are good for social skills and turn taking. They teach how to be a winner or loser and to wait for your turn. Four in a Row is one of these games. These are just a few of the thousands of apps available but they are a good place to start when using mobile devices in schools.