Dr. Chris’ Autism Journal

Timo is a friendly animated tutor who helps children with autism, hearing impairments, developmental delays and other language problems to learn communication, conversation and reading in fun computer programs.  Animated Speech’s software is designed to give speech pathologists, educators and parents who work with these children an important new tool to build comprehension and vocabulary skills.

The initial concept for Timo was developed by Dr. Dom Massaro and Dr. Michael Cohen with a grant from the National Science Foundation.  Originally, Timo was called Baldi, and the once university lab project soon became a commercially available product.  Dan Feschbach, the company’s CEO, has grown the company and they now have 3 products available for varying levels of language learning. 

Team Up With Timo: Vocabulary teaches identification, comprehension, and expression of more than 650 words including animals, human body, weather and much more.  The program offers pre and post tests for assessing progress and has 6 other levels of learning to teach the vocabulary.  The unique aspect of this program is Timo, who engages the child in conversation using the child’s own name!  The child’s voice can also be recorded so that the child’s parents and other team members can review it after the child’s session.  Rewards are given in response to correct answers and include a large variety of brief animations.  This program has many options for customization and is best for early language learners through about 4th grade vocabulary.

If you are looking for more customization, ASC also offers Team Up With Timo: Lesson Creator.  In this program, teachers and professionals and create custom vocabulary and language lessons for the child to do on the computer.  You can use any pictures you want including the ones in the Timo vault, or upload your own.  This is an excellent way to build individualized, personalized lessons for your child. 

For older children or for children who have more language skills, they have Team Up With Timo: Stories, designed by Dr. Lauren Franke and Pamela Connors, speech-language experts.  This program teaches listening skills, comprehension, vocabulary, retelling stories, and reading skills.  Research has shown that being able to retell a story at age 4 is predictive of later success in school.  Storytelling also helps children participate in daily life with friends, family and school.  This program is based on research in language development and uses the Narrative-based language intervention (NBLI) approach that combines storytelling with skill-based activities.   

Timo products are available online and a free trial is provided.

The American Speech and Language Association (ASHA) now offers a helpful DVD for parents, teachers, researchers, and clinicians which overviews milestons for speech, language, and hearing development in the first 5 years of life.  The website includes samples from the DVD and is helpful on its own but the DVD has much more information and only costs $10 (even less if you order in bulk - for schools, clinics, etc.).  I also think this would be an excellent resource for pediatricians to hand out to their patients and obviously a terrific thing for speech and language pathologists and audiologists to give to parents. 

Speech, Language, and Hearing Milestones: Birth to Age Five is a 44-minute DVD with three main sections:

1. Introduction to communication. Briefly explains the importance of communication and how speech and language develops. It also covers the role of hearing and the impact of an unidentified hearing loss.
2. Speech-language pathologists and audiologists. Describes the credentials and services of the professions, particularly those for children birth to age 5.
3. Communication Milestones. Individual chapters focus on general communication milestones by the following age ranges: Birth to 3 months; 4 to 6 months; 7 months to 1 year; 1 to 2 years; 2 to 3 years; 3 to 4 years; and 4 to 5 years