Guest Blogger ... Krista tells us about Leah and her favorite apps

My daughter, Leah will be 6 in March. She is non-verbal. She has a history of infantile spasms. She has cortical visual impairment, global developmental delays, and complex partial seizures.

Leah has had her iPad for about 6 weeks. At first she needed hand over hand assistance to point and use the apps. She now points on her own and can do some of the apps independently.

Our ultimate goal for the iPad is for Leah to use it as a communication device, but we've found that it is also helping her in other areas. It's helped her with her receptive language, vision, cognition, and fine motor skills.

Leah takes her iPad to preschool with her every day. They use it in circle when they talk about the weather. She uses it at lunch and snack to request food. Her therapists also use it with her in various ways.

One of the neatest things that I've seen Leah do with the iPad is transfer skills from school to home. I was working with her one day on a number app. There were numbers 1-10 randomly arranged on balloons. The objective was to "pop" the balloons in numeric order. I planned on helping Leah by doing hand over hand. Before I could do that, she touched the number one. She continued the whole way up to and including number six. I was amazed! I talked to her teacher and asked her if she had been working with Leah on her numbers and she said that she has her put them in order every daynat school. It was really neat to see that she could transfer that skill that she learned at school to that app on the iPad at home.

Our top ten apps are:

Tap Tap Baby - MoonFry Labs

Baby Rattle Toy: Christmas Edition - SelenaSoft

Discover Musical Instruments - Mathieu Brassard

Baby Finger HD - DJ International

Virtuoso Piano Free 2 HD - Peterb

Itsy Bitsy Spider HD - by Duck Duck Moose - Duck Duck Moose

Wheels on the Bus HD - Duck Duck Moose

Old MacDonald - by Duck Duck Moose - Duck Duck Moose

TapToTalk™ - Assistyx LLC

Adam's Game - Toddler Voice Flash Cards - Sol Robots

 Thanks Krista ... Looking forward to hearing more about Leah and her iPad.