Otsimo Special Education ABA - Otsimo

This review of Otsimo Special Education ABA was completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 31 May 2019.

About the app

This section contains details about the app provided by an ACCM Reviewer.

ACCM review

This review of Otsimo Special Education ABA contains the following information:

• The level to which the game was reviewed
• App description
• Reviewers comments
• In App purchasing
• Online information
• Gambling
• Advertising and product placement
• Gender stereotypes and sexual references
• Coarse language
• Game playing behaviour which may be of concern to some parents
• Other

The level to which the game was reviewed

Played for several days.

App description

Otsimo Special Education ABA is an app that uses Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) concepts to teach skills to children with various disabilities including; Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Global Development Delay (GDD), Down Syndrome, and other disabilities. These skills include matching and labelling colours, shapes, emotions, senses, etc. Further content can be accessed by subscribing which includes things like Reading and Writing, Vocabulary, Time, Money and Jig Saws. There is also an AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) device for those with speech difficulties. There is a “Family” mode which provides progress reports to parents (e.g. time spent on the app, time spent per game, points earned, goal setting, etc.). The app tracks progress within each game and increases in difficulty as you go.

Reviewers comments

This app is intuitive and easy to use. However, the free version is pretty limited and many players may exhaust its usability quite quickly. Subscribing does open up a lot of content but it’s not exactly cheap at $239.99 (AUS) per year. The AAC is pretty good – very similar to Proloquo2go – which is a picture system used for communicating. Regarding learning the content skills (e.g. shapes, colours, animals, etc.), the app does pretty well to use some techniques used in ABA (such as the absence of using negative terms, prompting for correct responses and the sound of clapping as a type of positive social praise). However, there are some problems with it. Firstly, being an app, there are quite a few things that cannot be facilitated that an ABA therapist can (establishing reinforcers, assessing developmental level, providing differential reinforcement, etc.). There were also some minor problems in games: matching colours (each colour was surrounded by a different shape – which may cause confusion as to what is meant to be matched) and when matching an item in a field of three, (e.g., matching a monkey to a choice of either a monkey or an elephant or a tiger) quite often matching the correct object fell in the same position consecutively, which may cause an association to that position rather than the object itself).  Having said this, overall the app is pretty good (particularly with the subscription) and may be beneficial as an accompaniment to ABA therapy for learning skills.

In App purchasing

There is In-App purchasing in this game, examples include:

• Monthly Subscription $20.99
• Otsimo Annual Subscription $164.99
• Discounted Premium (Annual) $119.99
• Otsimo Lifetime Premium $229.99

Online information

There is no online information required to play this game.

Gambling

At the time of review, the reviewer found no simulated gambling content. If you discover simulated gambling content in this app, please contact us with the details so we can update our review.

Advertising and product placement

There is no advertising or product placement in this game.

Gender stereotypes and sexual references

None noted.

Coarse language

None noted. 

Game playing behaviour which may be of concern to some parents

Please see reviewer’s comments above.

Other

The developer’s suggested age of 4+ may be a generic number used through iTunes. However, as an early intervention technique, ABA principles can well be used from the age of 2.

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