Accessibility Apps: Technology to aid in creating equity
Mihaela, the AUArts Academic Accommodations and Wellness Coordinator, compiled an extensive list of accessibility apps to help you balance life a little easier.
See below for app recommendations that can help with executive functioning, community building, and mental health resources. Please note: App descriptions were copied and pasted from apps. List inspired by a post from @neurodivergent_lou
This list is a work in progress. If you have an app or extension you would like to add to the list, please email learning.assistance@auarts.ca
Task Management
Habitica – Free
Turns task management into a game where you gain experience for each task you complete. You can set reminders and purchase accessories for your avatar with the points you earn. Also team up with friends!!
Sweepy – Subscription ($16.49/year)
Helps track the cleanliness of each room and prioritise the most urgent tasks by turning them into a game.
Tiny decisions - Free
Helps with decision making through prioritizing and visuals.
Google Keep – Free
The app offers a variety of tools for taking notes, including texts, lists, images, and audio. Text from images can be extracted using optical character recognition and voice recordings can be transcribed. The interface allows for a single-column view or a multi-column view.
Notes can be colour-coded and labels can be applied to notes to categorize them. Later updates have added functionality to pin notes and to collaborate on notes with other Keep users in real-time. Add photos, notes, audio, and lists. Good for notetaking!
Otter.ai – Free options
Allows you to take meeting notes, record, and transcribe meetings. Good for notetaking!
Time Management
Routinery - Free
Set morning and evening routines with visual reminders.
Owaves - Free
Owaves is a holistic calendar designed to optimize your circadian rhythm. Plan meals, exercise, and sleep into your day. Download now on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.
Tiimo - Subscription ($8.08/month or $47.20/year)
Scheduling app that helps you with your routines through visual reminders. Also available for smartwatches.
Visual Timer - Free
Simple visual timer app that allows for the visualization of time.
Multi-timer - Free
Provides multi-coloured timers that can all be run at the same times for different tasks.
Finances
Emma – Budget Planner - Free
Tracks your expenses, set a budget, and track paydays.
Splitwise - Free
Keep track of your shared expenses and balances with housemates, trips, groups, friends, and family.
Mental Health
Calm Harm - Free
Focuses on combatting self harm. Uses dialectical behaviour therapy exercises for coping with difficult emotions.
Rootd – Free trial, Subscription based (8.08/month) or One-time purchase ($200.99)
An App for anxiety relief and panic attacks. Provides daily check-ins, includes close contacts, and provides a lot of variety of short-term and long-term mental health strategies.
Suicide Safety Plan - Free
Create a safety plan which includes contacts, reminders of positive reasons for living, and coping strategies.
Bearable - Free
Keep track of your Mood, Symptoms, Daily Activities and other health factors such as Sleep, Medication, Exercise and Food Diary. You can even automatically sync your steps, heart rate, blood pressure, weight, and more.
Molehill Mountain - Free
Molehill Mountain is an app to help Autistic people understand and self-manage anxiety. You can use Molehill Mountain to explore the causes and symptoms of anxiety.
Emergency Chat - Free
Provides the ability to pre-programme text messaging that pops up on your screen when you are in crisis and cannot text or communicate. Can be handed to someone for help which will then proceed to a chat function.
I Am Sober - Free
I Am Sober is a sobriety tracker that helps you build new habits and connects you to people with the same goal: staying sober one day at a time. You can track how long you have been free from a behaviour (ie. Drinking or self harm)
Finch – Free (subscription option)
Hatch a little bird, give them a name, and build mindful habits to help your new pet thrive with the Finch app. Each positive task you complete helps your new finch grow.
The app encourages you to fill out reflective questionnaires, set goals, and develop positive habits. By combining healthful practices with an adorable virtual pet, the Finch app also supports self-care for humans (Improve Your Self-Care Routine With the Finch App (makeuseof.com))
Community
Fabriq - Free
Fabriq is a social wellness company that creates apps and content designed to help you strengthen the relationships that matter most, because a thriving social support system is the key to a happy life. Sends reminders to reach out to each other.
Threads – Free
Designed for groups dedicated to social support, Threads is the app for checking-in between live sessions. Members stay connected to the work and to each other by answering curated prompts, delivered automatically each week – because consistent accountability and support is the key to success.
Hiki - Free
Hiki is a social app for Autistic adults to find friendship and love. It's a safe space to foster deep connections and community.
Access Now - Free
Access Now is a community-driven app that pinpoints accessible locations on an interactive map. You can look up places like restaurants, museums and attractions and view their accessibility ratings: accessible, partially accessible, patio access only and not accessible. You can also rate locations and even add your own to help others in the community.
Sensory
Antistress: Relaxation toys - Free
When you need relaxation, diversion or just a moment of distraction enjoy this collection of toys: hear the sound of a bamboo chime, play with wooden boxes, swipe gently your finger in the water, tap buttons, draw with chalks and so on!
Heat Pad - Free
This app simulates various heat-sensitive surfaces reacting to the heat of your fingertips. Simple, yet surprisingly relaxing and entertaining! Play alone or let your fingertips meet other fingertips from all around the world and doodle on the same surface!
Text to Speech
Speechify – Free trial, yearly subscription ($139/year)
Speechify is a mobile and desktop app that reads text aloud using a computer generated text to speech voice.[1][2][3]
The app also uses optical character recognition technology to turn physical books or printed text into audio.[4][5] The app lets users take photos of text and then listen to it read out loud.[6] (Wikipedia)
Natural Reader – Free
NaturalReader converts text, PDF, and 20+ formats into spoken audio so you can listen to your documents, ebooks, and school materials anytime, anywhere
Panopreter Basic – Free
Panopreter Basic is a free text to speech and text to mp3 software program, it reads any text with natural sounding voices, and converts the text to spoken audio files in wav and mp3 formats, so that you can listen to the audio with a mp3 player later at your convenience. Users can adjust volume and voice speed.