Give Me 5!!!!! Social Skills Review

Give Me 5!!!!! Social Skills Review

Jenny Krones October 15, 2014

App Overview

Give Me 5! Social Skills is an app that teaches 8 different social skill categories in a game-like format. It covers advanced social skills such as recognizing body language, manners, handling emotions and more! The app uses videos of real-life scenarios, followed by questions about the clips to teach these difficult social skills. The team that created this app has an extensive background working with children of various developmental needs and includes a Mother of a child diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. Give Me 5! is a great app for tackling difficult social cues for children and adolescents.

App Features

The app opens up to a menu with two options; sign in or see a how-to guide of the app. When the user signs in she or he can create a unique profile with personalized picture and voice options. The guide page explains how to play the game, to hold the iPad (vertically), to set up your profile and explains how points and bonus points are scored in the game. Once the user signs-in they play the game by dropping a colorful disk and tilting the iPad to make it land in one of the eight different social skill categories. A short video clip of a social situation relating to that category is played, and then followed by a “yes” or “no” question about the clip.

Creating a Profile

Give Me 5! let’s you personalize your profile by entering your name, taking a picture and choosing your virtual “friend”. A fun feature is the user can record “Give Me 5!” and will hear their own voice every time they get a answer correct. There is also pre-recorded voice in both a girl’s and boy’s voice.

Game Play

To begin playing, the user taps on the colorful disk held by the virtual friend. The disk drops in one of eight colored boxes at the bottom on the screen. A short video clip pops up, plays, and then asks a question. When the users chooses the correct answer , a commentator explains why this was correct and plays the “Give Me 5!” audio clip. If the user picks the wrong answer, the app will have them “try again” later in the game.For example, in the “People & Places” category a girl is humming while taking a text in class. The commentator asks if she is having appropriate behavior and the user must choose “yes” or “no”.The user can e-mail the results of the game by choosing “quit game” from the menu button in the upper left hand corner. There are 5 levels and 40 questions with video clips, ranging from appropriate behavior in public places to reading other people’s body language. After each level completion, it congratulates the user with an applause and firework visual.

General Conclusions

This app is very user-friendly and easy to navigate. The subtle social cues demonstrated in the video clips are great for working on complex social skills that are not easily learned by people with ASD. The break between questioning with the “plinko” type game is fun and keeps the user motivated. It would be nice to be able to have multiple users and save the scores, especially for a classroom setting. It would also be beneficial for an explanation for wrong answers. I had to “hard close” the app a few times while playing with it because it wouldn’t let me access the menu, but it did save my information when I opened it back up. I recommend this app for higher functioning children and teens working on learning advanced social skills. It covers a wide variety of social situations that are useful for everyday life.

Check out this website for more information and a video demo of the Give Me 5! App. At the time of writing this review Give Me 5!!!!! Social Skills retails for $7.99

Buy Give Me 5!!!!! Social Skills in the iTunes App Store

A fun app for teaching and understanding social skills