Apparently the app that helped the most is one that allowed her to take a picture of the math worksheets and write the answers on the iPad rather than using a pencil and paper. No stylus just her finger. The best I can guess is she became comfortable forming the shapes of the numbers without the pain in her hand. I don't have her school iPad here so I can't check for specific apps - sorry. I know there was a song she learned that totally unlocked the problems she was having with money. They use a lot of manipulative for math but let her do what works for her - no insisting she use a certain technique or method. Mostly the pressure was utterly and completely removed from her. This is a kid who loves to learn. I mean really, truly loves it. Learning, and now creating PowerPoints on topics of interest, is play for her. I really think the biggest difference is she has been given the room, flexibility and opportunity to do this. In the process the decoding skills have improved a lot. There continues to be major issues with encoding but word prediction and dictation software should help with that. She is also getting lots and lots of OT along with a ton of 1:1 instruction.
Yes she has tried the built in dictation on the iPad and it doesn't work for her. From what I understand it is not intended for use with children below middle school age and it just can't read her voice. They could not even get a baseline to start the training program for her. Then you add in her speech impediments (s/sh/th, r/w, certain vowels, etc) and it didn't even have 50% accuracy. We have a friend with contacts inside Nuance, the makers of Dragon, who made it her mission to get DD functioning dictation software. Long story short DH spoke with one of the software developers who the spoke with the AT consultant and there is a plan in place to get a program up and running for her. It will require developing and training an individualized speech program. Everyone is on board and we have a meeting scheduled next week to see about getting it going. According to the programmer from Nuance they should be able to get a functioning program for anyone but it will need to be done on a desktop - the program for iPads and other mobile devices won't work for her. He told DH they even got it working for a client without a tongue so there is no reason it shouldn't eventually work for DD. I would love if whatever they figure out for DD can get generalized out to help more LD kids. I'm all too certain that there are a lot of dysgraphic kids who could benefit. Just look at this board to see a number of examples...
