Pennsylvania parents create iPhone app for autism

From The Times-Tribune in Scranton, Pa.:

When Steven and Elizabeth Maher learned their daughter Sarah had autism, they went through stages of denial and fear.

"At the time, it seemed the only thing worse would be to someone have your child taken away," said Mr. Maher. "But we refocused and went into combat mode to fight the good fight for Sarah."

Now, 11 years later, they found a way to help Sarah and other autistic children.

The Mountaintop couple developed an application for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch that helps track behavior in autistic children. Called Behavior Tracker Pro, it was approved this summer by Apple as an "app" and was placed on the iTunes Web site, where it can be downloaded for $9.99. It has been downloaded more than 400 times, and the pace of downloads is increasing.

When a child with autism misbehaves, a caretaker records, usually on paper, situations that precede the behavior, then times how long that behavior lasts. The caretaker also tries to correct the behavior and notes whether the correction worked.

The result of this record-keeping process, known as Applied Behavior Analysis, is often data of questionable value. Paper-collected data could be put into a desktop computer program later, but that additional step is time-consuming, cumbersome, and often resulted in lost data.

For many children, it wasn't being done, and it wasn't being done right, Mr. and Mrs. Maher concluded. Mrs. Maher, from her work as a consultant at local schools, saw it was difficult to tell if a treatment plan was working. If data was collected, it often wasn't graphed.

"Graphing data allows everyone to see how treatment plans are working," Mrs. Maher said. "If you don't take data and don't graph that data, you're flying blind."

Using a portable computing device kept in a pocket or on a belt would make the process much easier than using a clipboard and stopwatch. Rather than keying the information into a computer, it can be transferred by plugging the device into a USB port.

Apple was a natural choice. In the first 10 days that Apple opened its "app store," customer downloaded 25 million of the tiny applications programs. Since then, the way people view their cell phones has changed. Once used as just a mobile telephone, the phones can now perform thousands of tasks.

Also, Apple allows anyone to be a developer. As long as the program conforms to Apple standards, does what it claims to do, and isn't designed to do anything illegal, Apple will approve it and sell it on their iTunes Web site.

The Mahers figured out what they wanted the program to do. Since neither is a software developer, they hired Nick Rudolfsky, of Nitrex Pro Inc., who operates a reference Web site that caught Mr. Maher's attention.

They never met the New York programmer, and were surprised to learn he was a teenager when he told them he was taking time off to go to his prom and graduate from high school.

"We only communicate via e-mail and an occasional phone call," Mr. Maher said. "I suspected he may be in college, but never thought he'd be in high school." When they had a prototype, the Mahers began using the program with Sarah.They instantly noticed how a change in medication affected her behavior and shared the information on colorful graphs with her doctor.

"We had a real, live success," Mr. Maher said. "The data doesn't lie and it became clear where you are headed."

With no marketing plan, app sales started slowly. But word of mouth in the close community of parents of autistic children helped the pace of sales increased in places as far away as San Diego, where parent Laureen Forman learned about the program from a friend. She and her son's therapists and teachers communicate regularly, but the iPhone program has the potential to make it easier. Her son has an iPhone with him so teachers can keep track of his behavior.

The goal for caretakers is to understand how to inhibit and avoid bad behaviors and encourage or foster good behaviors in an autistic child.

"Behavior Tracker Pro allows you to figure out what is happening before unwanted episodes and change those things," Ms. Forman said.

She's trying to convince her son's school to pick up the Mahers' program. With some assistive technologies costing thousands of dollars, a $9.99 program should be an easy sell, she said.

In the wake of many requests, the Mahers and Mr. Rudolfsky are putting finishing touches on a version of Behavior Tracker Pro for BlackBerrys, which outnumber Apple devices, and for the Google Android. They are also developing a Web portal to allow real-time collaboration and video conferencing among all those involved with an autistic child's care.

The team has begun exploring how Behavior Tracker Pro can be used with clients who have a variety of other conditions, from mental retardation to Alzheimer's. The program can be used with multiple clients, making it ideal for teachers or therapists.

Mr. Maher also works with the Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Business & Industry as a consultant, offering advice and an app road map to budding application developers.

Economic developers such as John L. Augustine III, vice president of the Wilkes-Barre Chamber, said he thinks people have ideas, but lack the expertise to get them to market.

"This is an entire industry that we'd like to turn into businesses," he said.

Meanwhile, the chamber has set up Mr. Maher with their network of Web designers, patent attorneys and search engine optimization services.

The app sales have allowed the Mahers to recoup only about 30 percent of their development costs, but Mr. Maher is not troubled. The former Navy systems administrator still has his day job in New York City and Mrs. Maher continues working with schools as a special education consultant.

"The scores of people who have raved about BTP is reward enough," he said, adding he hopes if sales increase with the Blackberry version he can work on the program full-time.

"Liz and I are blessed," Mr. Maher said. "We always had Sarah in mind for everything we did. But we realized what we wanted to do could benefit many others."