Autism Intervention Tools Build Language Skills.SAN FRANCISCO San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden -- Animated Speech Corporation (ASC ASC Ambulatory surgery center, see there ), pioneering creator of software-based learning tools for children with autism autism (ô`tĭzəm), developmental disability resulting from a neurological disorder that affects the normal functioning of the brain. It is characterized by the abnormal development of communication skills, social skills, and reasoning. and other language delays, will show its new suite of programs at Closing the Gap, Oct. 19-21, 2006, in Minneapolis. The programs feature the inventive use of an engaging animated tutor, Timo, who provides children with a supportive, fun, and motivating environment to build vocabulary, listening comprehension, language, and story sequencing and retelling re·tell·ing n. A new account or an adaptation of a story: a retelling of a Roman myth. skills. The three Timo software programs, which run on Windows and Macintosh computers, work together or individually: Timo's Lesson Creator lets parents, teachers and speech pathologists quickly and easily develop vocabulary lessons targeted to the individual needs of children with autism. Authors rapidly build lessons with any type of image, including 3,500 Mayer-Johnson's Picture Communication Symbols[TM]. Team Up With Timo: Vocabulary helps children learn and practice new vocabulary for K-4th grade curriculums and covers a range of subjects. Team Up With Timo: Stories helps children practice their syntax, story comprehension, vocabulary and social thinking skills with six scaffolded stories and six activities. The software series was developed by authorities in speech pathology speech pathology n. The science concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of functional and organic speech defects and disorders. Also called speech-language pathology. , clinical speech therapy, developmental psychology developmental psychology Branch of psychology concerned with changes in cognitive, motivational, psychophysiological, and social functioning that occur throughout the human life span. , and vocabulary and reading pedagogy. The lesson system's unique proprietary technology centerpiece is exclusively licensed from the University of California The University of California has a combined student body of more than 191,000 students, over 1,340,000 living alumni, and a combined systemwide and campus endowment of just over $7.3 billion (8th largest in the United States). and based on more than 20 years of research. Timo reads any text with accurate speech, and reveals how sounds are formed with precise face, lip and tongue movements. "Children rely on both auditory and visual cues to learn new language. Our tutor has been shown to be extremely effective in helping children with autism learn to new vocabulary and language skills," said Dan Feshbach, co-founder of Animated Speech. "We're looking forward to getting our animated tutor into classrooms, clinics and homes, where it's needed the most." About Animated Speech Corp. ASC's mission is to create easy-to-use, customizable software that can be tailored to the highly individual needs of children with autism and other language delays. ASC was co-founded by University of California at Santa Cruz Santa Cruz, city, United States Santa Cruz (săn`tə kr  z), city (1990 pop. 49,040), seat of Santa Cruz co., W Calif., on the north shore of Monterey Bay; inc. 1866. psychology professor, Dr. Dominic Massaro, and entrepreneur Dan Feshbach, whose son has autism. [c]2006 Animated Speech Corp., All rights reserved. www.animatedspeech.com |
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