I have read that you can use snort with a wireless laptop and create some sort of wireless IDS but is there a specific software that specializes in that?

Sure. It's conceptually the same as an IDS on a ethernet-based network and you have less issues with placement of the sensor (as long as it's in RF range it's still "seeing" all the traffic). The only problem is that the standard version of Snort isn't designed for detecting attacks that are specific to wireless, like deauth floods, replay attacks, etc. Some wireless "auditing" tools have the capability to detect malicious wireless traffic, but I think the most promising areas to look at would be a branch of Snort that's specifically designed for wireless, shockingly called... Snort-wireless.

Many thanks.