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Big Bang Pictures: App Review

Perfect for students with CVI or students who have complex needs!

Throwback Thursday post updated from October 2015:

Big Bang Pictures app by Help Kidz Learn has been designed specifically for students with complex visual needs, including students with CVI. This app contains visually stimulating images of familiar objects – tap on the image and the image will move and music/sounds are heard. (See Big Bang Patterns post for a similar but slightly more basic CVI app.) Each image is paired with motivating music or sounds. The movement and sounds help capture and maintain the student’s visual focus. A Big Bang Picture will appear one at a time accompanied by a tone. Tap the screen to animate the image – the picture will move accompanied by music or fun sounds. Example: With the bus image, the wheels spin, the bus bumps up and down and appears to be moving, the people on the bus move and individually wave.This simple cause and effect app can be used with a switch device. This app progresses the student through three levels of pictures: Silhouette, Simple Line Art and Complex Line Art.

Silhouette image of a bus:

Silhoutte Bus: White background Black school bus with silhouette images of 4 people riding the bus with limited details.

Simple Line Art image of a bus:

Simple Line Art image of a bus: Same image as silhouette bus with white background, but bus and people are white with black outlines.

Complex Line Art Image of a bus:

Complex Line Art bus image: White background with detailed city bus and people outlined in black. People have more detailed hair, clothes, and faces.

Further customize the app to best fit your student’s current needs, by choosing color combinations: There are eight background colors and nine foreground colors. Black and white (pictured above) provides high contrast and is often preferred for initial vision activities for students with CVI. Other options include choosing how long each animation lasts, choose a visual prompt (with or without a picture prompt), and enable switch (with the option of one or two switch controls). There are 21 images available; in settings, you can choose which images to include in the game.

When the student is playing the game, only the image is on the screen. The screen is uncluttered and no buttons appear on the screen. (Use a two-finger double tap in the top left corner to exit the game.)

Quick video demonstration of the Big Bang Pictures app with silhouette Images:

Accessibility

Low Vision: This app has been carefully crafted to develop visual skills for students with complex needs. The images and customization options are ideal for students with CVI and/or special needs. The app provides various color combinations and levels of image complexities to support progression of visual skills.

Blind: This app is not intended for students who are blind. The app is not accessible with VoiceOver. 

Switch Access: This app is compatible with one or two switch devices.

Conclusion

Big Bang Pictures strongly supports building visual skills for students who have complex needs. With CVI students, the clutter-free backgrounds, choice of high contrast colors, familiar images, simple movements and motivating sound effects are critical app components. Throw in the student interaction (cause and effect tap) and students are actively engaged!  The level of complexity options supports each student as he/she transitions through stages as his/her visual skills progress. This app is a winner!

 

By Diane Brauner

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