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Interview: iAdvocate’s Alan Foley on Empowering Parents of Children in Special Education

Syracuse University professor Alan Foley developed iAdvocate, a free iPhone app that helps parents of school-age children with special needs “share and develop specific strategies with parents for working collaboratively with a school team to improve their children’s education.” We’re grateful to Dr. Foley for talking with us about how iAdvocate can help our families, his development process, and how his app is setting a advocacy precedent. We recommend reading Syracuse University Magazine’s excellent Spring 2011 Access and Opportunity article for more information about Dr. Foley’s work. Your app is remarkable, and is filling a role a lot of people hadn’t anticipated — when it comes to autism and other developmental disabilities that can have a language component, folks tend to focus on iPods and iPads in an AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) capacity. Apps like iAdvocate clearly demonstrate that these devices can be so much more. What inspired you…