A new interactive program relates images with actions.
Dan and Carey Tedesco found a way to use their iPhones to help their son Evan with autism.
The married couple from Shelton in May launched iPrompts, an application that allows parents and caregivers to communicate tasks to autistic children through images. Beforehand, they had to create photos and laminate them into a notebook to show Evan, 4, what the next activity would be.
"I found it rather cumbersome," said Carey Tedesco, adding that iPhone's Picture Schedule feature gave her an idea. "I decided to just take the notebook and put it into the iPhone!"
Autism, which affects one out of every 150 individuals, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is a developmental disorder that begins at birth or within the first 30 months of life.
The Tedesco's, who met while working at Stamford-based sister technology firms Walker Digital and Synapse Group, founded HandHold Adaptive in August 2008 to launch their idea. Their application, which has been developed with help from Rob Tedesco, Dan's brother from Fairfield, has several hundred images to choose from, said Dan, 35, who still works as an attorney for Walker Digital, a research and development company founded by entrepreneur Jay Walker that gave birth to Priceline.com Inc.
"You can either use the pictures that come with iPrompts or take pictures with the camera," he said of the application, which costs $49.99 at the iTunes App Store. "We are working on expanding it to several thousand images."
iPrompts also uses the iPhone's GPS capability and the application's bank of images and features to create a multimedia "snapshot of a disabled person's current scenario," Dan said.
iPrompts will soon be able to "talk" for kids with language difficulties--the child will touch the image on the screen and the iPhone will say the word. It will also include a data-tracking feature so that caregivers can record a child's behavior in a specific scenario to help reveal behavioral patterns, said Carey, who is now self-employed as a freelance graphic designer after leaving, Synapse.
"We've had a lot of good feedback that iPrompts would be good for adults as well," she said, adding that Yale University is interested in the data-tracking component. "We're not going to make everyone happy, but we're going to try to be as broad as we can," she said.
Handhold Adaptive, which has been issued six patents so far, is also working on creating video games that engage children into activities that help develop their verbal and cognitive skills, Dan said.
"Wouldn't it be great to have a low-cost supplement to their therapy?" he said. "This technology can help these individuals adapt to new situations and get out into the community."
The uses for iPhone applications will most likely expand over time as fast as the creativity of the people out there, said Ken Dulaney, vice president of mobile computing with Gartner Group.
"There is absolutely no end to what can be done," he said. "This sounds like a great idea."
Published by THE ADVOCATE, written by Michael C. Juliano, 8/14/09
