storysmart1: Trudy Goes to the Beach - Social Language Skills

Trudy Goes to the Beach
Trudy is taking a beach trip with her family. Can she make expected choices when her sensory system is overloaded and she’s on a different schedule? What if things don’t go her way? She needs your help to make smart and safe choices!

With storysmart™, our innovative suite of animated story apps, your child can learn important social language skills. Blending clinical expertise with clutter-free design, storysmart™ apps were developed by a husband and wife team who have a daughter with high-functioning autism. The combined passions of an experienced speech language pathologist and an award-winning designer come together to support communication skills for this ever-growing population of children.

For a short video of storysmart™ in action, go here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYRFK5WLupg

USE YOUR SOCIAL SMARTS!
storysmart™ users engage in a real-life story -- a day in the life of our quirky, adorable characters, but they have to help our characters solve problems, comprehend the setting, and use their social smarts to resolve the story and get positive feedback. The primary goal of the storysmart™ apps is to raise the user's awareness of social expectations and to stimulate critical thinking skills to achieve the best outcomes in those settings.

"Finally, there's an app that helps children with HFA learn about social expectations! The founders of rubycube have perfectly blended design for visual thinkers and clinical expertise to create a solid product that addresses the core deficit of children on the spectrum."
Dr. Gary Mesibov - Former Director TEACCH, UNC Chapel Hill

App features:

- PERSONALIZED AUDIO FEEDBACK
Users' own sounds are played as feedback after each choice is made – both positive and negative. This provides a humorous and personal auditory reinforcement of the choices the user makes.

- MULTI-SENSORY LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
storysmart™ presents a learning environment whereby the user can actively modify parts of the story – the character's words, actions and behaviors – to correct what's unexpected and achieve the best possible outcomes.

- MORE THAN ONE SOLUTION, JUST LIKE REAL LIFE
storysmart™ gives the user multiple paths by which they can appropriately resolve social situations instead of providing a single solution. Like real life, there is more than one way to achieve the expected outcome!

- ACTIONS, WORDS AND BEHAVIORS DEMONSTRATED
storysmart™ provides a variety of familiar social scenarios in which hundreds of unexpected choices occur, each one visually demonstrated to reinforce the consequences of those choices. As the user freely modifies each choice, the visuals change to reflect and provide context for the new choice. They can literally see the effects of their choices.

- RECORD YOUR OWN VOICE WHILE YOU READ
To aid with reading fluency, users can record their own voice while they read and then play it back to check their accuracy.

- NUANCED CHOICES HELP TO PROMPT CONTEXTUAL AWARENESS
storysmart™ provides a menu of phrases which the user can modify with existing phrases. Some phrases will seem appropriate, but may be out of context with that situation. The user needs to attend to contextual cues in order to interpret those choices and select one that best fits. The app also provides controls to adjust the level of challenge for the user.

- ENGAGING BUT NOT OVERSTIMULATING
Stories are accompanied by animated graphics which reinforce the context of each setting and are designed not to visually overwhelm the user. The music is designed to have a calming effect and to keep the user engaged in the activity.

- CLUTTER-FREE INTERFACE FOR VISUAL THINKERS
The storysmart™ interface is specifically designed to facilitate the learning experience by minimizing clutter on the screen. App controls and navigation can be hidden during use to keep the user focused on the content.