ERRORLESS LEARNING APP
Making Screen Time Count for Early Learners
WELCOME TO THE ERRORLESS LEARNING APP
ABA Instruction right on your iPad or iPhone!
Do you know if your toddler or preschooler is learning enough during iPad time at home, or with your iPhone on-the-go? Is your child using all the educational apps you installed, or swiping through other games and videos? Make sure your child is learning important developmental skills by using the Errorless Learning App!
With children using technology at an earlier age now than ever before, we need to make the most of this screen time by teaching skills that will prepare children for a successful preschool and Kindergarten experience. With a simple click this app will help your child to improve receptive communication, cognitive development and fine motor skills in a way that will maintain motivation to keep learning.
Download the Errorless Learning App today and make screen time count! Watch your child give correct responses every time!
ABOUT THE APP
Errorless Learning App Description
The Errorless Learning App utilizes the principles of ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) to teach academic skills to early learners, including vocabulary words, shapes, colors, letters, and numbers. This app includes:
- 200+ pictures
- 12 shapes
- 11 colors
- 26 upper-case letters
- 26 lower-case letters
- 20 numbers
Visual perceptual and fine motor skills are also practiced by completing puzzles and tracing letters and numbers. Many of the Kindergarten entry prerequisite skills are taught within this app!
Skills are taught in a way that prompts the learner to respond correctly every time, without giving the option to respond incorrectly. The best part is, children earn a reward for accurate responding: making fireworks at the touch of a finger! The integration of both the errorless teaching strategy and frequent positive reinforcement is what sets this application apart from other leading early childhood education programs.
The Errorless Learning App focuses on listener responding skills, often referred to by speech and language pathologists as “receptive language” skills. Mastering these listening skills provides the foundation necessary to develop expressive language skills, which involves answering questions accurately and verbally responding to parents and teachers.
The Errorless Learning App was created by a BCBA/teacher/parent. It is specifically designed for children with developmental delays (all ages), including diagnoses of speech and language impairment, Autism, and ADHD. This app is also beneficial for typically developing toddlers and preschoolers who are preparing for Kindergarten enrollment (approximate age: 2-6).
SUPPORTING RESEARCH
Instruction that is Evidence-Based
What is Errorless Learning?
Only the Best
Errorless Teaching = Errorless Learning
Errorless Teaching is a teaching procedure in which the child is prompted to make the correct response immediately, ensuring a correct response each time. The prompt is then slowly faded in order to promote accuracy with the least amount of errors and frustration.
Errorless learning was an instructional design introduced by B.F. Skinner in the 1930s. There was controversy at the time, and following, about whether errors were necessary in learning a behavior. Skinner (1968) wrote, “…errors are not necessary for learning to occur.”
Errorless learning typically involves four different procedures when practiced in the instructional setting. The Errorless Learning App is not inclusive of all of these procedures, but is an adapted form of the one described as Time Delay. The following link describes these procedures and includes a short training video that shows what errorless teaching looks like during ABA therapy: http://abaappliedbehavioranalysis.weebly.com/errorless-teaching.html
Book Reference:
Skinner, B. F. (1968). The technology of teaching. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Why use ABA Techniques?
Truly Top-Notch
Studies have demonstrated that Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) techniques can produce improvements in communication, social relationships, play, self-care, school and employment. These studies involved age groups ranging from preschoolers to adults. Results for all age groups showed that ABA increased participation in family and community activities.
Web Article Reference:
https://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism/treatment/applied-behavior-analysis-aba
The Technology Epidemic
What did we do before smart phones?
People don’t communicate today as they did years ago. We have become connected to our phones and tablets and disconnected socially with those nearby. Most likely, not one person reading this can claim to have been unaffected by dependency on technology to some degree in recent years.
Research has found a correlation between early onset and high frequency of TV viewing and language delays. Many parents fail to understand that this includes educational shows and apps. These programs might do a good job of teaching letters, numbers, shapes, and colors. However, if children spend more time engaged in these programs than they do with face-to-face interactions, they may lag behind in other Kindergarten prerequisites, particularly in social and communication.
Journal References:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0193397316300260
https://academic.oup.com/pch/article/22/8/461/4392451
https://doi.org/10.1093/pch/pxx123
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1651-2227.2008.00831.x
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR APP USE
Parental Involvement
Parents are encouraged to assist their children in using the app by pointing to each picture and asking, “What is this?” Parents can also help children to respond to this question by teaching the response errorlessly with an echoic prompt, such as saying, “What is this? Dog” or saying, “say dog.” By doing this, you are including skills from other areas of development that aren't directly practiced within the app, like expressive language and social skills. Edible rewards can also be effective for learning. For example, a child can receive one goldfish cracker or fruit snack during the reward time. (Snacks in small pieces are easiest to use; bigger snacks usually aren’t as effective for continual responding.)
Turn on Guided access
To have the user remain within the app, you can turn on the guided access feature. On your ipad or iphone, go to General --> Accessibility --> Guided Access to turn the feature on. This way, the child cannot exit the app. The parent will need to hit the home button 3 times and put a code in to exit the app.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
The Learning App Targeting Individual Skill Mastery, Here to Help
WHY USE THE ERRORLESS LEARNING APPROACH?
These characteristics describe the methodology of the errorless teaching approach:
1- The Errorless Learning App only reinforces correct responding. Children can become frustrated when told “no” or corrected after responding incorrectly. Games with error sounds and movements can make the incorrect answer reinforcing, meaning children will learn to respond incorrectly more often than responding correctly. Even something as simple as an error buzzer sound with X and back and forth movement may be entertaining for some learners.
2- If an incorrect response is attempted, this app prompts the learner to respond correctly until success. Allowing children to error before correction can make it difficult to respond correctly on future trials. Think of the old Aristotle quote, “To unlearn is as hard as to learn”. We learn more efficiently when we take away that extra step of unlearning the incorrect response.
3- The Errorless Learning App requires the user to complete three different tasks before being rewarded. There is no way for the user to skip ahead and access the reward screen without completing these tasks. If the app user enjoys the fireworks reward screen, motivation will drive the mastery of skills that were seen as a challenge for the individual!
WHAT'S DIFFERENT ABOUT THE ERRORLESS LEARNING APP?
The mission of the Errorless Learning App is teach skills to each app user in a way that encourages mastery of challenging tasks for that individual while still being fun and engaging. Each child possesses different strengths across different areas of development. Some children excel at identifying pictures and matching but have difficulty with other skills, like visual performance and fine motor. Other children might love to complete puzzles and write letters but are challenged if prompted to identify pictures and shapes. Most apps available are very specific to certain skill sets where that skill is drilled continually. Some apps make learning a fun game; others are just fun games without much learning occurring. A few top-selling educational apps include a variety of skills, but give users the ability to surf through different sections and complete the sections they prefer. The areas of the game that children are highly interested in tend not to be the area of development that needs the most improvement. This can be especially problematic for children with special needs, as well as typically developing children with great strengths in one area and deficits in another area.
WHAT IS THE PRICE OF THE APP?
The app is currently listed in the App Store at $2.99 for iOS devices.
IS THE APP AVAILABLE TO ANDROID USERS?
Sorry, this app is not currently available on Google Play. It is available on the App Store for any updated iOS device.
The Developer's Story and Credentials
ABOUT THE DEVELOPER
In 2012, shortly after my son’s 2nd birthday, he was diagnosed with PDD-NOS, more recently identified as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)– Level 1. To avoid confusion, allow me to digress into a brief history of this diagnosis. You may have heard this also described as “mild Autism,” or “high-functioning Autism” (HFA). The DSM-IV defined this high-functioning Autism as either PDD-NOS or Asperger’s Syndrome, while the updated DSM-V categorizes similar symptoms as either ASD - Level 1 or Social (Pragmatic) Communication Disorder. Throughout the existence of the ASD diagnosis, the DSM has made revisions within the higher-functioning category. This diagnostic criteria will likely change again in future years due to the complexity of the individuals and variation in symptoms across the population. The Autism spectrum is much more inclusive than anyone envisioned back in the 1980s. In my opinion, the realization of how broad the spectrum may be is making it a challenge for experts to define it clearly and objectively.
My son got his first iPad at age 3. He was an instant pro on the iPad, being able to navigate through any app or video he preferred. His iPad wasn’t only for play; I had installed several educational apps! But something concerned me about all of these educational apps. My son was so skilled in his ability to navigate through the apps, that he would tend to use only the areas he enjoyed (usually previously mastered skills). He found a way to skip over the areas where he needed improvement, such as tracing, writing, and vocabulary. The ability to identify all letters by age 3 is a great skill to have already mastered, but he actually had the ability to identify every single upper- and lower-case letter prior to identifying some basic vocabulary words. I still don’t know exactly how my son learned all of his letters by his 3rd birthday; it could have been either the ipad or TV. I never intentionally taught him one letter, and this also wasn’t drilled in his therapy sessions at that young age. Many typically developing children cannot yet identify letters until age 4 or 5. This is developmentally appropriate, and completely fine! Learning skills sooner is not always necessarily better. Typically developing children also demonstrate receptive and expressive language skills by age 2. They tend to pick up a vocabulary from their caregivers and environment fairly easily and independently.
While letter identification was a strength I could cross off the list of Kindergarten entry expectations, my 4-year-old still had a lot of work to do with both language and writing. When I say “writing,” what I mean is, he didn’t have much interest in printing even the first letter of his name! This was hard work to him, and he tried to avoid both printing and coloring. Presently at age 9, he is thriving in regular education programming to the point where teachers are surprised to learn his diagnosis from age 2. Being fortunate enough to have received Early Intervention services from an excellent team of teachers and therapists, the child who once struggled to put words together is now one of the most talkative students in the class. Even so, this app still could have been very useful for him back in his preschool years. I built it with his learning style in mind. Of course, his skill level is now beyond what is exercised in this app. I hope to include learners who have the opposite set of strengths; they may perform great in picture identification and tracing/writing, but may be challenged to identify most letters and numbers.
This app was designed to be beneficial to both typically developing early learners and school-age children with developmental delays, including diagnoses of speech and language impairment, Autism, and ADHD. My ultimate goal for this app is for it to be used across all settings, including the home, school, clinic, and community. As recommended, we should place daily limits on screen time for young children. But when they are permitted to have screen time, let’s make that screen time count!
Bridget Fitzsimmons, creator of the Errorless Learning App
Professional Experience and Education:
Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA)
Early Intervention and Autistic Support teacher - PA state teacher certification in Early Childhood, Elementary, and Special Education
PA state Licensed Behavior Specialist
M.S. Early Childhood Education and Intervention
M.A. Applied Behavior Analysis with emphasis in Autism