Choiceworks 4+

Love this easy to customize visual schedule!

My son has moderate autism. I homeschool him because I don't feel he would thrive in a classroom. We do a lot of life lessons. I have his school day broken into lessons. Each lesson has a few activities, most have photographs I have taken of the actual materials we use and I record my voice to tell him what we are doing. You could even add videos if you use it for things like brushing teeth. He gets a verbal "All Done" and a check mark when he completes each task. It is so easy to customize if we change the tasks from day to day. It is engaging and I don't have to write out a schedule anymore! I love this app!!!

Drains Battery

There is no way to allow the app to go into autolock within the apps settings. Right now if we have Choiceworks open, our device does not go into sleep mode, which is draining our battery pretty significantly. I spoke with Apple and there isn't anything we can do on our side the app setting overrides the general iPad settings. When I reached out to the developer regarding this setting they believe it is a visual schedule and should always be in view for the user and would only look into addressing it if they received volumes of concern.

When utilizing digital supports battery life should always be considered. These are a lot of individuals lifeline. If they removed this override setting from the app, individual users could adjust and choose their own setting for auto lock features, like TouchChat and other digitalsupports allow. Its upsetting that Choiceworks does not see this as an issue to be addressed in their app. Unfortunately, I cannot utilize this app and all its great qualities because it will drain the device that usually holds a charge for days within hours.

Developer Response ,

Hello, Family of Five. I am the developer of Choiceworks. You have never contacted me, so I’m unclear about this review. Our app is certainly not a one-star app. We have been highly dedicated to its evolution for over 20 years.
Regarding draining the iPad battery, in the last 10 years, we’ve received three users identifying this as an issue, including your review on the App Store. I’m unclear why, if you’re using a visual schedule, you would not want the visual schedule visible to the user at all times since that is best practice, not just belief. However, you can swipe out of the app when you don’t want it visible to the user. If you are using a timer, the timer will still work effectively this way.

I have to charge my iPad at least 4 times daily, and I don’t run Choiceworks on it. I wish you had contacted us directly because I don’t even know who I’m speaking to, and it’s unfortunate that you felt the need to leave this negative one-star review. We are a very approachable, small family business. I hope you find what you are searching for. Michele Walker, MS

Transformed our children's lives

This app has positively changed the quality of our family time management during school days. We mostly use the schedule boards. The kids each have their own iPad with the app (although there is a feature to have multiple profiles, the timer feature does not work when switching between profiles). They retrieve it in the morning and begin completing their tasks. They are significantly more independent in transitioning from task to task than when they did not have this app. It's a huge relief. I'm actually setting up schedule boards for myself!