You may be asking yourself why we would feature a typing program for children with autism. Why would such a program be important or helpful? I don’t know a child with autism who does not struggle with fine-motor skills at some level. I’m sure such a child exists, but I have yet to meet him! For the literate child with poor fine-motor skills, typing can help him enter the world of written communication. While learning letter shapes and how to hold a pencil is very important, by teaching your child to type you will be able to begin working on the actual communication skills without waiting for those other physical elements to come together.

Typing Instructor is ideally suited for autistic children due to one critical, yet seldom-known feature: the ability to create your own lessons. This means that you can set your child up to learn at his own pace, keeping the lessons short and to the point, and inserting his favorite words as early as possible.

I would suggest that you use the provided lesson plans as your starting point, and introduce keys in the same order in which they do. This way your child will not teach himself to just hunt-and-peck, but to actually type. To set him up, just go to his lessons and click personalize > create. Simply type in a few lines, give the file a name, and click save; it is as easy as that.

Another helpful feature is the on-screen picture of a hand using the correct fingers to punch in the keys. This is a dynamic graphic and will always show your child the correct position for the next key, making it a very helpful tool for him to refer to while typing.

We’ve started Krissy on this and find that she picks it up rapidly. I usually work with her to be sure she uses the correct fingers, especially when we introduce a new lesson. Soon she needs only verbal reminders, and she is quickly picking up on the time-saving advantages of following the directions.
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