Frequently Asked Questions

Table of Contents

What is Otsimo?

At Otsimo, we design gamified educational apps for children with developmental or learning disorders such as autism and down syndrome, or for children having a hard time reaching their developmental milestones. There are currently two apps we offer which can be found on Google Play Store and Apple App Store, Otsimo Special Education and Otsimo Speech Therapy. Our mission is to make special education accessible to all children who need it because it is not easily accessible, not anywhere in the world. Our co-founder Zafer, has a brother who was diagnosed with severe autism 16 years ago, where Zafer explored a whole new world full of unhindered potential. This all started out with our co-founders Zafer and Sercan, designing games for Zafer’s brother to really see if they can contribute to his learning. Both of our apps were inspired by Zafer’s brother Alper, who learned a lot from our apps! We are here to provide all the necessary educational material to the special children so that they can learn something new every day.

How can I download Otsimo apps?

Download Otsimo Special Education

Download Otsimo Speech Therapy

What is Otsimo Special Education?

Otsimo Special Education is a highly acclaimed mobile application offered on multiple platforms that is specifically designed for education of children with special needs in a gamified context. The app’s main goal is to provide accessible and affordable special education to those who need it and help children reach their developmental milestones. It consists of +100 games developed with the contribution of parents and professionals to give the necessary and fundamental special education with a personalised and customizable curriculum for each child.

What is Otsimo Speech Therapy?

Otsimo Speech Therapy is a dependable and acclaimed speech therapy app targeting the needs and wants of your child with speech problems. Packed full of fun activities, Otsimo Speech therapy aims to improve pronunciation, speech production and can help overcome speech issues many individuals with ASD and developmental disorders face. The app is designed to aid speech and language skills through scientifically proven peer modelling and its proprietary algorithm. Being the only app utilizing voice and speech recognition, Otsimo Speech Therapy will become your child’s on-the-go SLP.

What age are Otsimo apps suitable for?

Otsimo Speech Therapy and Special Education are designed for children aged 1 to 8. However, as each and every child has different needs when it comes to education, children as old as 15 can use our apps as well.

What are the topics covered in Otsimo Special Education?

Otsimo Special Education is packed with over 100 games, under 17 categories. Hundreds of fun games and activities are designed to teach children various topics from everyday activities to numbers, letters, or colors. Otsimo Special Education is developed to improve and boost children’s motor, cognitive, communication, reading and writing skills.

Certified and acclaimed by prestigious institutions*, Otsimo Special Education features a learning path, where the difficulty and the contents are adjusted based on the performance of the child, making the app specifically tailored for their needs.

Gamified education materials are designed in a way to engage and improve children’s skills, while also providing lots of fun.

What are the topics covered in Otsimo Speech Therapy?

Otsimo Speech Therapy SLP is an award-winning speech therapy app designed to improve speech. We are proud to say that Otsimo Speech Therapy SLP is the only SLP app that utilizes speech and voice recognition and machine learning to nail down what the child says and adjust the games accordingly.

Otsimo Speech Therapy SLP has over 15 categories of fun activities and filters to teach and improve communication, interaction, turn-taking and speech skills. With over 200 exercises, Otsimo Speech SLP will help children with speech related issues, such as delayed speech, apraxia, stuttering, and articulation problems. To give a couple of examples, the exercises include numbers, animals, family members and feelings.

How much do Otsimo apps cost?

For both Otsimo apps, we offer a 7-day trial period with no additional cost or information required. There you can fully explore our developmental games and further premium perks we offer to Otsimo Families! Here are the links for our premium prices for Otsimo Special Education and Otsimo Speech Therapy just keep in mind that we do offer special discounts occasionally. There are 3 different packages we offer: monthly, annual and lifetime. These differ in terms of price and duration of you accessing all the premium content! Apple’s App Store and Google Play Store have their own operating systems with the payment and charging that we have no control over, so please make sure to check your subscription options if you wish to discontinue your free trial.

Can I Use Otsimo apps on multiple devices?

Yes for sure! You can use Otsimo apps on up to 3 devices but you should definitely sign in with the same method, for example if on one device you signed in with your Apple ID then you have to sign in with your Apple ID on the other device to access your account. The type (phones/tablets) or operating system(iOS/Android) of your device does not matter . If there is another problem you’re facing make sure to contact us at [email protected]

Can I use Otsimo apps on my desktop computer?

Otsimo apps are 100% compatible with iOS and Android smartphones and tablets. For the sake of user and kid-friendly features of our apps, we only provide apps on smart devices since desktops add a complication to the system. Smart devices allow a more intuitive playing experience in our gamified content compared to desktop computers.

Is Otsimo Special Education only available in English?

We are proud to say: No! Otsimo Special Education is available in English, Spanish, German, French and Turkish. We are determined to reach all children across the globe and more languages for our apps are in the work.

You can change your language preference by following the next steps:

  1. Go to the family module.
  2. At the bottom right corner of your screen there is an option “More” tap on it.
  3. Under the Account section you’ll see Language settings.
  4. Choose your preference on that screen. And you’re done!

Is Otsimo Speech Therapy only available in English?

Yes, but only for the time being! We are always working on improving our content for you! So stay tuned.

Why do I need an app if I can talk to my child?

Face to face interaction with loved ones is irreplaceable. However, special needs require special attention, and life can easily get in the way. Our apps are designed to best suit your child’s needs through carefully designed games and activities on a scientifically-proven base. We use peer modelling with real children and real speech. Our apps allow for unlimited repetition until the child can grasp the concept and then practice. We will help you give your child the best possible solution for education while also creating a space for quality family time with fun activities.

Isn’t screen time bad for my child?

Just like too much of anything is not really good, screen time can also pose problems when done excessively.

However, screen time can be beneficial for educational purposes. American Academy of Pediatrics states that this screen time should be dedicated to high quality educational programming around the age of 18 months.

Of course, there are things to consider when allowing your child to spend time on screen. Limited and monitored screen time with high quality content like Otsimo can prove beneficial.

It should also be noted that we recommend using our app 15 minutes daily and children can learn a lot just from that! We also have an article for how to spend quality screen-time if you’re interested in further reading.

Is Otsimo Special Education app a substitution for special education?

Special education is provided by professionals in their own fields, with help from the parents and caregivers. It is not fully possible to replace their excellent and valuable work. However, traditional methods may not always work for every child. Some children with special needs do not respond positively to therapists or their parents and caregivers, but they like to spend time on their own on our apps doing fun activities. Otsimo Special Education is an excellent complementary companion for these children since they can easily use the app on their own.

Is Otsimo Speech Therapy app a substitution for speech therapy?

Speech therapy is a method with proven benefits over the years. Professional Speech Language Pathologists experienced in this field provide excellent care in development of children’s speech. However, some children may not feel comfortable with this traditional method. And sometimes, in various cases across the globe, it is not possible to access or afford speech therapy. That is where Otsimo Speech Therapy comes in handy.

Why should I pay for apps like this?

You may be feeling like an app would not need to be purchased. It is fair to think so. But we have crafted our apps using the state of the art technology, backed with scientifically proven methods. A team of 24 people is behind these excellent, award-winning apps, developing and maintaining them to always provide the best experience possible. We have created a chart for you to see where exactly your money goes when you pay for subscription.

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Common Problems

I forgot my password? Click on “Forgot my password” under the login page of Otsimo and enter your e-mail address. You can reset your password and log in with the help of your e-mail address.

The application was deleted? If your app is deleted, you can download Otsimo on AppStore for your iOS devices and on Google PlayStore for your Android devices. Once you have logged into your account by using your membership information, you can easily access past reports and statistics about your child.

How can I give feedback? You can give feedback, and report your comments, suggestions and complaints about the app by using the Feedback section on Otsimo Family or by sending an e-mail to [email protected] .

The application stuck / closed / froze? Applications may continue to run in the background if full shutdown has not been done, which may cause any application to be stuck. In this case, you can try turning the application off and restarting it. For this operation, please follow Apple’s guidelines for your iOS devices by following the steps in the link. For Android devices, this is not standardized but you should follow your device’s guideline to See Applications buttons on the left or right of the screen.

If there is no improvement in your application after these steps, you can check if your application is up to date and install it if there is an update. As a last resort, uninstalling and reinstalling the application can help resolve such issues.

If you have tried all of these solutions and there is no improvement, please contact us.

Can I contact you?

Of course! We are always here for you! Feel free to contact us anytime!

If you have any problem or just want to get in touch with us for a reason, don’t hesitate to send us an email at [email protected] . Also, you can use the feedback feature in our app.

We will do our best to respond to you as soon as possible but expect our reply to linger until the first working day during the Weekends or Holidays. But hopefully, we will get back to you within the next 24 hours. If you send us an email and you do not see our reply within 24 hours, please check if our email has perhaps landed in your Spam or Promotion folder.

We can also guide you through the product features personally. We can talk on the phone or over Skype/Hangouts.

It’s always great to hear from you!

My child is diagnosed with … Can I use Otsimo | Special Education?

Yes you can! You can find out more on how you can get the most out of Otsimo Special Education for different conditions:

Transparency Policy

You can reach our transparency policy from here.

Subscription

Refund

I’m having sound/audio issues with Otsimo AAC

For iOS devices
Sometimes devices and apps can have miscommunication. This could result in many errors, one of which is not having sound on your app. To fix this, please make sure that your device is unmuted. Another thing to try would be signing out and signing in again to your account. This will help reset the process and you should have sound with no problems.

For Android devices
The first step is to make sure that your device is unmuted. This is an easy fix that resolves the problem 99% of the time. If you can’t find the voice options in the voice selection menu, this could mean that you need to download Google’s text-to-speech and speech-to-text application at this link. Otsimo AAC uses this technology in the background and needs it to function properly.

Appendix

How to update the application? If automatic updates are set up for your applications on your devices, updates will be completed automatically.

For devices with auto updates turned off, you can go to the AppStore and tap on your account on the top right corner, swipe down and you’ll see the updates on your iOS device, and in PlayStore for your Android devices in order to follow the latest updates.

How to use guided access mode? Guided access mode is only available on iOS devices and when activated it ensures your child stays focused on the content you chose. Tapping on anything other than you allowed, will not work.

After activating the Settings -> General -> Guided Access section, you need to set a password by opening the “Set Guided Access Password” section in the “Password Settings” on the same page.

Which devices are compatible?

For IOS: Otsimo apps can be used on iPads and iPhones with versions of iOS 11 and above.

For Android: Otsimo apps can be downloaded to Android devices that have at least 2 GB RAM and are Android 6.0 and above.