Potty training is now easier thanks to an innovative application called “See Me Go Potty” from Avakid Productions. The app, which is available in iTunes and Android markets, uses a stress-free approach to potty training, allowing kids to see and hear themselves completing the process.
The app closes the gap between seeing someone else perform a behavior and visualizing oneself perform the behavior. The user first personalizes an avatar with their child’s features, creating a cartoon of the child to identify with and watch. The app includes two alternate scenes, one showing the child successfully using the potty and the other showing the disappointment of an accident, as well as comprehensive advice for successful potty training.
“Recognizing the convergence between our neuroscientific understanding of how the brain learns and the techniques that have become the foundation for teaching children with developmental delays and learning disabilities, we set out to create an application grounded in both,” Avakid co-founder Ann Power Smith, PhD said.
Visualizing oneself doing something taps into the part of the brain responsible for planning motor behavior in real life, the SMA (supplementary motor area). As a child visualizes herself completing the toileting steps, she can train her SMA and adopt successful toileting with ease.
“We initially struggled with potty training our middle child Grace when she was two years old because she wasn’t communicating well. We sensed that she needed a more concrete, explicit, high-repetition teaching approach, and one that would keep her attention,” Colin Smith, Avakid co-founder, said.
Colin and Ann overcame the challenge of potty training Grace through creative thinking grounded in Ann’s expertise in the neurobiology of learning, memory, and behavior. An autism spectrum disorder was the reason for Grace’s communication difficulty, leading the parents to visual demonstrations as the most effective way of teaching her new skills.
By creating a cartoon of Grace, Ann was able to hold Grace’s attention and communicate every step in the process, from the ‘Gotta go!’ feeling to washing hands. Grace was entertained by watching her cartoon self over and over, started mimicking the script, and was finally trained within a few weeks. Using this approach, Grace was trained earlier than most kids on the autism spectrum, before her third birthday, within the age span expected for typically developing kids.
Knowing how well it worked with Grace, Colin and Ann followed the same process to quickly and successfully train their typically developing youngest daughter. Aware of the trials and tribulations that many parents go through with potty training, they realized that an app could bring this approach to the public and would be a welcome relief for families facing difficulty in potty training.
“When reading traditional potty books, I could see my kids paying more attention to the ‘fluff’ than to learning to use the potty, so I knew our app needed to not only hold a young child’s attention, but also to hold it squarely on the target lesson without distractions, especially for kids with delayed communication and limited attention spans,” Ann said.
‘See Me Go Potty’ is a teaching tool for parents of typically developing kids of potty training age (as young as 20 months) and for parents of special needs children, including children with autism spectrum disorders, who often struggle with toileting beyond the typical training age. The tablet/smartphone platform provides a revolutionary medium for learning. Avakid Productions has adopted this exceptional new medium to help make potty training easier, less stressful, and more fun. For more information and to see a demo, visit www.Avakid.com.
The app closes the gap between seeing someone else perform a behavior and visualizing oneself perform the behavior. The user first personalizes an avatar with their child’s features, creating a cartoon of the child to identify with and watch. The app includes two alternate scenes, one showing the child successfully using the potty and the other showing the disappointment of an accident, as well as comprehensive advice for successful potty training.
“Recognizing the convergence between our neuroscientific understanding of how the brain learns and the techniques that have become the foundation for teaching children with developmental delays and learning disabilities, we set out to create an application grounded in both,” Avakid co-founder Ann Power Smith, PhD said.
Visualizing oneself doing something taps into the part of the brain responsible for planning motor behavior in real life, the SMA (supplementary motor area). As a child visualizes herself completing the toileting steps, she can train her SMA and adopt successful toileting with ease.
“We initially struggled with potty training our middle child Grace when she was two years old because she wasn’t communicating well. We sensed that she needed a more concrete, explicit, high-repetition teaching approach, and one that would keep her attention,” Colin Smith, Avakid co-founder, said.
Colin and Ann overcame the challenge of potty training Grace through creative thinking grounded in Ann’s expertise in the neurobiology of learning, memory, and behavior. An autism spectrum disorder was the reason for Grace’s communication difficulty, leading the parents to visual demonstrations as the most effective way of teaching her new skills.
By creating a cartoon of Grace, Ann was able to hold Grace’s attention and communicate every step in the process, from the ‘Gotta go!’ feeling to washing hands. Grace was entertained by watching her cartoon self over and over, started mimicking the script, and was finally trained within a few weeks. Using this approach, Grace was trained earlier than most kids on the autism spectrum, before her third birthday, within the age span expected for typically developing kids.
Knowing how well it worked with Grace, Colin and Ann followed the same process to quickly and successfully train their typically developing youngest daughter. Aware of the trials and tribulations that many parents go through with potty training, they realized that an app could bring this approach to the public and would be a welcome relief for families facing difficulty in potty training.
“When reading traditional potty books, I could see my kids paying more attention to the ‘fluff’ than to learning to use the potty, so I knew our app needed to not only hold a young child’s attention, but also to hold it squarely on the target lesson without distractions, especially for kids with delayed communication and limited attention spans,” Ann said.
‘See Me Go Potty’ is a teaching tool for parents of typically developing kids of potty training age (as young as 20 months) and for parents of special needs children, including children with autism spectrum disorders, who often struggle with toileting beyond the typical training age. The tablet/smartphone platform provides a revolutionary medium for learning. Avakid Productions has adopted this exceptional new medium to help make potty training easier, less stressful, and more fun. For more information and to see a demo, visit www.Avakid.com.
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