Nessy

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I found some wonderful games for my 7 year old Aspie son. He is struggling with reading....can add, subtract, multiply and divide and tell you all about WWII, Rats, dolphins ect but is still reading at a 1st grade level. I was looking under Mac software and I found some games called Nessy. They are from Scotland and I had to pay for them in British pounds (I live in California). I did find them for sale in american dollars but it would have cost me twice what I paid....I actually got two games for the price I would have paid for one. So we got "Nessy Games" which teaches reading and spelling...every time you level up your Nessy grows (first you hatch him from an egg) and we also got "Nessy Fingers" which is a keyboarding (typing) program. Im amazed at how much progress he has made in only two weeks.
We have tried reading to him, handwriting without tears (he has loose joint syndrome and small motor skill issues so it is painful to write but that is a different post LOL), and we've tried Hooked on Phonics. Not only is he typing with his fingers on the correct keys (and enjoying it) he is reading words that I could not get him to learn before. Best 40$ I have spent in a long time.
They have a demo that you can download to try and see if your kid likes it. http://www.nessy.com/nessygamesplayer/
My son is just a big computer guy so I guess its only natural that he learns better from the computer. It was actually his OT that suggested I try a keyboarding program and I just found the other game in the process. Anyway, just thought Id share.

That looks like a neat program.

It is taking advantage of a special interest that you see frequently on WP. Making something (numbers, an egg) get bigger. It's a cause-and-effect interest. I loved sports video games when I was young because of this.

Good find.

I have a nephew who has autistic tendencies. He had great amounts of trouble learning how to read. What did it for him was role playing video games. Once he figured out how much easier it was to play the game by learning to read, he bade the connection. He had an innate reason to read instead of it being constantly pushed on him and shoved down his throat. Get got tired of waiting for someone to come into the room to read the script to him. In order to get someone on the spectrum or even near its edges to learn something, it has to be relevant to them.