SPARK was created to help you build a relationship with someone who has autism. Talking awhile and spending time together builds relationships. Relationships make life good. If you are someone who cares for someone who has autism you already know that building a relationship is not easy. Though you may spend time together, talking awhile with that person hardly ever happens. It is likely that you do not get consistent responses. It is likely that you run out of things to say. SPARK is here to help. When you use SPARK with a talking partner who has autism, objective number one is to build a relationship through talking awhile together. As your relationship grows, you are helping the person who has autism to develop a set of skills to use to talk awhile with you. Basically, SPARK links pictures with words so you can talk awhile together about them. Your talking partner may have a very low learning curve, be visually oriented and have an excellent memory. You already know that repetition will be key, but you do not want straightforward memorization. There is a randomization function for that. There is no sound in Spark because it is meant to be used by two people talking together. There are also no scores to keep. Talking and communicating to develop a good relationship is the objective. Try to use SPARK daily and with patience and effort, as you use SPARK together, the person will develop a toolbox of answers to use to keep their side of the talk going. You will likely develop a new understanding of how your talking partner relates to words. And, if your talking partner is not yet reading, SPARK can help them begin to read. How good is that! As you use SPARK together you may begin to notice that the person not only uses the material during SPARKtime but at other times too. Your talking partner may also start combining the elements of the answers already learned into new answers to new questions. As you watch all of this happen you can feel your relationship with your talking partner growing and relationships make life good!
Spark is free for personal use. As Spark grows, the SPARK community will use donations to develop and support projects and organisations that directly benefit children with autism.
