Melbourne, Australia – PKCLsoft today is proud to announce the release and immediate availability of Dollar Up 1.0, their new educational app for the iPad. Dollar Up is a teaching app written expressly for use by special education teachers or parents of special needs children. The purpose of Dollar Up is to serve as an aid in teaching the “Next Dollar Up” technique. This widely-used approach teaches money skills to students who have autism or intellectual disabilities and who are not able to learn how to count change. Dollar Up helps increase independence and empower individuals by teaching them how to use money and make their own purchases.

The “Next Dollar Up” method teaches students to listen for the whole dollar amount, then give one dollar more than that amount. For example, if the price is $6.45, the student hears $6, adds one more, and gives $7.00. They also learn that if the price is below $1.00, for example $0.95, they give $1.00. If the price is a whole dollar amount, “Next Dollar Up” teaches students to give only that amount. Dollar Up has been developed to support classroom teaching and real life money practice. It is not intended to be the only educational tool used to teach the student. Dollar Up assumes that the student can already count with 1 to 1 correspondence and can recognize written numerals.

Feature Highlights:
* Clean and uncluttered user interface that is ideal for teaching Special Needs
* “Know What’s Inside” app with no ads or in-app purchases
* 7 skill levels
* 2 built-in reward games
* Provides detailed reports (that can be emailed)
* Supports errorless teaching and learning
* Supports multiple students that can be configured independently
* Provides clear audio prompts
* Provides visual prompts that can be enabled where appropriate
* Built-in support for multiple currencies including Australian, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and the European Union

Each lesson in the app aims to teach a different aspect of using money with the “Next Dollar Up” method. Users can opt to view a short introduction to “Next Dollar Up” with each lesson. Whenever a mistake is made during the lesson, the app will demonstrate (using both voice and animations) the correct answer to the student. After answering all the questions, students have the option to play a reward game of Balloon Pop or Coin Catch. Dollar Up generates a report for each lesson detailing the student’s results including which questions were answered correctly and how many attempts were made to answer the question. Lesson results can be emailed from the Edit Profile page.

Dollar Up teaches the following lessons:
* Identifying whole dollar coins and notes up to the twenty dollar note
* Reading a price and finding $1 more
* Listening to a price and giving $1 more
* Counting the notes and coins on the screen
* Giving a requested amount
* Giving the amount applicable for a grocery item
* Comparing a price amount to money available

Dollar up has been designed to be clean and simple to use. Buttons are large for ease of use and there are no distractions on the screen such as ads. Multiple profiles can be set up in Dollar Up and each profile customized independently for each student. To access the student’s profile settings, users tap on the student’s name and select the Edit Profile icon. In addition to setting reward levels and denominations, the user can disable certain features such as showing the prices or score during play.

“Even in the testing phase, Dollar Up has received a lot of praise and positive feedback from parents and educators around the world,” says Peter Easdown, founder of PKCLsoft. “By learning the ”Next Dollar Up” method, the student gains some independence in their money handling and they are less likely to be taken advantage of. Furthermore, I am a proud member of the “MOMs with apps” developer community and a contributor to the “Know What’s Inside” program. Therefore, all of my kids apps will clearly state what (if any) data is collected and for what purpose. I do not include advertising or social media links in any of my educational apps that are written for use by young children.”

Device Requirements:
* iOS 5.1 or later
* iPad (all models)
* 50 MB

Pricing and Availability:
Dollar Up 1.0 is only $4.99 (USD) and available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Education category. Review copies are available upon request.

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Dollar Up 1.0
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Based in Melbourne, Australia, PKCLsoft is a small, independent developer of iOS apps that was founded in 2011 by Peter Easdown. Copyright (C) 2014 PKCLsoft. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPad are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.