iPad App Review - Kandy Fish

For my first app review, I want to look at an app called Kandy Fish,  Kandy Fish is an Educational App for iPad by Emantras Inc.  The app sells for $0.99

Edit 10/13/2011:  The developer of Kandy Fish emailed me yesterday, less than 24 hours after the initial review.  I think that says quite a bit about the company for such a small blog like mine to be recognized.  Thanks, Punflay!

This particular app is one of Ayden's favorites.  He loves fish and aquariums, so was immediately drawn to it.  The app itself has many area it covers including a free-form color section, color matching, patterns, and drawing shapes.  It also includes a book that the app will read to you that includes most of those different learning areas with it.

Kandy Kolor - This section is for free-form coloring.  Basically, a coloring book on your iPad.  I'm not a huge fan of this type of section in an app, but the kids do seem to enjoy it and it helps out with some of those fine motor skills and coloring in the lines.  Since we can't seem to get Ayden to pick up a crayon (or any other writing utensil) it does serve a purpose for us in him acquiring those skills. 

As you can see from the screenshot below, you can choose your colors and then basically just color like you would normally.  The arrows to the left and right of the pictures are how you choose different pictures to color.  It's fairly straight forward and simple.

Color Pots - This is a fairly easy color sorting game.  Four colors, four fish for each round (the colors change each time)...and you drag and drop the fish into their respective buckets.  There is a verbal prompt when you drop an incorrect color as well as a visual queue that it was incorrect.   When you get one correct, the app verbally tells you what color it is and when you have correctly dropped all four fish into their buckets you also get a verbal "awesome" remark before switching to the next "round".  It is a fairly simple matching game.  My two year old loses interest very quickly in this section, but Ayden plays it a lot.  The colors it covers are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

Kandy Fun - This section is all about simple patterns.  Most of the patterns are like red, yellow, red, _____.  It is certainly not an activity for advanced children.  The verbal remarks consist of telling you what color fish you touch, telling you when you incorrectly complete a pattern with "Try again!", and of course "Awesome!" when you correctly repeat a pattern.

Kandy Time - This is my favorite part of this app.  It focuses on drawing lines and shapes - a fantastic fine motor skill activity!  It has a simple outline on the screen to "guide" you and verbal prompts to "Make the fish _______".   Both Ayden and Issac work on this part, though it is more difficult to get Ayden to do it - he much prefers other sections.  You can see in the screen shots below that it asks you to make the fish swim in a circle, then you draw the circle and the fish actually go swim around the line you drew.  The one downside to this section is that the shapes are very sensitive.  You have to get them very close to "perfect" for it to work correctly.  Regardless, it is perfect for beginning to draw shapes/lines.

Read - Essentially an app-read book that will read each page to you that goes over all you can learn in the different sections.  The person playing turns the pages, so there is some mild interaction.  It does not prompt you to turn the pages though, which is a slight downside. 

Overall Impressions - I love this app because there are so many things for the kids to do while using it.  It teaches colors, patterns, shapes, and focuses on fine motor skills while working on those different things.  Even the reading section has some fine motor skills as you are swiping to turn the page.  If your child needs to work on these skills, I feel the $0.99 price tag is quite acceptable. 

Developmental Age:  The developer recommend 3-5 years for the age on this, but I feel it is more suited for a 2-3 year range when used for learning.  My 2.5 year old has most of the skills needed for each section except the shapes drawing which he has picked up very quickly, I just can't see a 4 or 5 year old playing this more than once or twice.

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iPad Apps - An Introduction

I finally went out and learned how to take a screen shot on the iPad, so now I just need to get it out of Ayden's hands to actually get some screen shots of our "favorite" apps and get some reviews going.  For now, I'm going to start with an introduction to choosing apps to put on your iPad....  Because the most common question I hear from parents of kids with iPads is...what apps?  There are SO MANY out there and many of them have the same type of information just put together in different formats.  So where to even begin?  It can be overwhelming, and even more so difficult to gauge which apps your little one will actually use.  No one wants to pay for an app that isn't going to be used or that is just overall not useful.

For us, the first thing I did was make a list of things we wanted to accomplish with apps.  Communication, colors, numbers, shapes, fine motor, parts of a whole, and overall output of information were top for us.  Once I knew I wanted the apps to do, my search became easier.  The Apple App store is set up fairly well in that you can search for "color" in the educational apps category and get a decent amount of hits.  From there, I looked at screen shots, descriptions, and especially reviews.

Overall, I ended up with about 50 apps to try out.  Of course the real test was seeing which apps Ayden would actually use....so instead of me even opening the apps I just let him pick and choose.  It became pretty clear over the course of a few days which apps he liked better than others, so I started removing apps and then looking for more to fill in gaps.  We repeated this process a few times, and each time I add new apps I just put the app on the iPad and Ayden will immediately gravitate toward new apps.  Sometimes he opens them and is done, but others he adds to his ever-growing list of apps he loves to play.

A great source is the website Moms With Apps.  Not only do they have fantastic reviews of apps, they also have something called Free App Friday, where they review apps and have either discounted or free apps specific to that day.  While this isn't set up for special needs kiddos, it is setup for family friendly apps - specifically to "promote quality apps for kids and families". 

Apps for Children with Special Needs is also a fantastic website to check out as a resource.  They review and have videos of apps specifically designed to help you decide if that app is what you are looking for.  They also have great programs for acquiring an iPad for those that may not be able to afford it.

I mentioned above how I use reviews on the app store to help me determine if an app is good to download or not.  I think one of the most important things we can do to help out other parents is leave reviews for apps - good or bad!  Just make sure you are constructive in why you do or don't like the app and how the description matches the actual app.  "My son didn't like this app" or "This is terrible" aren't going to help anyone make decisions, so be thoughtful and detailed about what you did or didn't like and why.

I'm going to start adding reviews for apps over the next week or two.  I have my list of about 15-20 apps that I'm going to give detailed information on their uses and how Ayden and Issac utilize these apps.  We have a unique perspective in that one child has FX/Autism and the other is on target for developmental milestones - I think it makes for interesting outcomes myself!

For now, please feel free to message me with any questions about apps, and also to leave your choices for favorite apps as well!  I would LOVE to get others input!  You can either leave a comment here, or look for my email address in the upper right hand corner of the blog.

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Minocycline Trial

We received a nice call a few weeks ago asking to enter Ayden into a clinical trial at the Mind Institute.  It turned out that he actually surpassed the age limit on the trial between sign-up and when they would be actually doing the testing, so we couldn't get him into that specific trial.  It is all seeming to work out though, as the same person was running that trial as is running the upcoming Minocycline trial!  She was very kind, and informed me that Ayden would for sure get into the Minocycline trial, to which enrollment would be happening mid-October. 

What does this mean for us?  Most importantly, Ayden will be seen at the Mind Institute and have a visit with Dr Hagerman.  For those reading that haven't heard of Dr Hagerman...she's basically the leading expert in the world on Fragile X.  (No, you did not read that incorrectly - I did say world).  Of course, this would also put Ayden on Mino, which is something Mr Awesome and I are actually hoping will help him out a decent amount. 

The tricky part to all of this?  We have to either fit in a visit to California before the end of the year, or wait until after the baby comes and go after that.  I think waiting will more than likely be the most beneficial, especially as we should have the baby tested by that point in time, but much will depend on what they want to do at the Mind Institute.

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Oh, Brothers!

We have an interesting phenomenon happening in our house recently.  First, we have Ayden who is pretty much completely non-verbal.  Second, we have Issac who at 2.5 never ever stops talking is now speaking in full sentences. 

I don't talk about Issac much on here, and mostly that is because he's developing at what is considered the "normal" rate for children.  It's certainly not that he's less important, but I try to focus on what it's like living with Fragile X in our lives.  I'm sure the older he gets, Issac will become more a part of everything as I know he is going to have his own unique experience with FX.  But, I digress.

The phenomenon I referred to above deals directly with Issac.  He loves his brother dearly.  He wants Ayden to do the same things as him and be in the same room with him most all of the time.  Sure they fight, but they are brothers and that is very much expected.  As we've progressed with Issac through saying words to speaking in sentences just recently, we've noticed Ayden started to say some of the words Issac would say or do things Issac would do.  It is a great thing to see, though a bit backwards for the younger one to be teaching the older of course.  It has been just recent though that Issac has now started doing  a few things.

First, he has begun to order Ayden around.  It will happen after mom or dad tells Ayden to do something where Issac will repeat what we say.  "A-A-Bay go get shoes!"  We are slowly correcting this behavior, but it is a weird thing for me to see happening.  Second, Issac will just decide Ayden needs or wants something that he himself wants as well and be very adamant about it.  "A-A-Bay want cereal too!"  Finally, he will just do things for Ayden if he is having a difficult time doing them (or pretending he can't).

This last thing is what is bothering me the most.  We try to make Ayden as independent as possible but he fights us on it tooth and nail.  For the most part, he would just rather have someone else do it for him.  It's a huge problem, especially as he will pretend he doesn't know how to do something and be extra cute asking for help (lots of kisses, hugs etc).  Plus, it's getting worse!  It is taking a lot of constant communication with anyone that is around Ayden to be sure they are making him do things on his own....but even his own brother will help him out!

So, we're working slowly towards a solution.  Working with Issac is important as well as working with Ayden to find the proper motivation to WANT to do these things for himself.  We haven't seen much progress yet, but it will come.  More than likely Issac will learn more quickly than Ayden...but we'll get there either way.  In the meantime, any advice would be welcome.  :)

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The Big Reveal and A Big Win

This weekend was a busy one for us.  Being this is our last baby, we decided instead of calling everyone to tell them about baby's gender that we would have a party to celebrate and share with our entire family at the same time.  It's a new "trend" in pregnancy right now, to have these parties called Gender Reveal parties. 

Normally, a gender reveal party works like this:  Mom and Dad get the ultrasound done, and the technician writes the gender on a slip of paper then gives the parents-to-be an envelope containing the gender.  Said envelope is delivered to a baker who then makes a delicious beautiful cake with the inside tinted either pink or blue.  (You know, blue for boy, pink for girl).  Family and/or friends are invited and mommy and daddy cut the cake to reveal the gender to themselves and everyone else at the same time.  While I have no issues with this, it wasn't the right way for us to go.  I knew myself, and while I would be happy for a little boy I knew finding out in front of everyone would not be a good idea for me.

So...we revamped the method a little!  I got some boy and girl balloon:

Then stuffed the balloons with little papers. The papers were carefully folded, so no peeking would occur through the balloons....and revealed the gender and name of baby on the inside.  The idea is, that everyone picked their "team" color balloon (team pink or team blue) then they would all pop them together and find out.  Let me just say, this turned out fantastic and so. much. fun.  My shortsightedness in remembering to find objects to pop the balloons with also worked in our favor because everyone could be creative about how they popped their balloon - of course they all wanted to be first!

So....we gave the okay to pop the balloons....

The whole thing really was a huge success.  We had such a great time just eating and spending time with family, plus being able to share this with everyone together was something I would recommend to every mommy-to-be.  It was even better for me then sharing we were welcoming the first baby grandson to both sides of the family. 

While the entire day was utterly fantastic, I would have to say one of the best parts for me happened when I laid down to go to bed that evening.  Because while I was entertaining and making sure everyone was eating - Ayden was playing with his aunts, uncles, and grandparents.  So much so, that it wasn't until I thought back on the day that I realized not once did I hear him scream, cry, or whine.  Not one time did I have to attend to him breaking down and get him out of the hustle and bustle of having 15 extra people in our house.  He didn't even freak out when everyone popped their balloons - something which normally would send him into hysterics.  Look at the pictures above during the balloon popping and you can see him just hanging out in the middle of the crowd.  I'm just so proud of him for how well he did he entire day.  And I look forward to more days like this, because for once I didn't worry about how to help him enjoy the day - he did it without any help.   It's these type of days and moments that make all that work worthwhile.  It reminds me that there is hope when we have bad days and helps me to keep going.  It is worth it.  There is hope.

And as for Ayden...he's going to be a big brother again........

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Only this time, it will be to a little sister! (You didn't think I'd forget to share this part did you?!)

If you are interested in seeing the rest of the pictures from our big party...you can view them here: BBQ and Gender Reveal Album

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