iPads are now excellent learning tools for students with disabilities

When a speech therapist suggested that it was time for 4th grader Sloan Brickey to use a device to help convey her sometimes-garbled words, the first option was a two-foot-long board that offered a choice of six words at a time.

Sloan, 11, has Down syndrome and already sticks out enough at her elementary school in Powell, Tenn., said her mother, Kelly J. Brickey.

So Ms. Brickey did some research and found a different solution: a list of applications for the Apple iPad that works well helping children with autism communicate.

Sloan’s mother happened upon a tool that has made its way into schools in big numbers less than a year after its debut. But iPads and other tablet computers are more than a novelty for many students with disabilities, including deaf students in Pennsylvania, youngsters with autism in Southern California, and children like Sloan with Down syndrome. They are tools that pave a fresh path to learning.

A combination of Down syndrome and apraxia — a sort of disconnect between the brain and the mouth that results in slow or jumbled speech — makes it difficult for Sloan to form words that others can easily understand.

In the past, after a few unsuccessful attempts at making someone understand what she was saying, her mother said, Sloan was likely to stomp her foot and leave the room.

Now, Sloan is using a tool that attracts other students, has boosted her self-confidence, and offers a means of communicating in greater depth with peers, her mother said.

Using an application on the iPad called Proloquo2Go, Sloan can scroll through pictures or choose from phrases and sentences she uses often, and the computer speaks for her.

“She’s able to tell them about things she’s done on the weekend, like ‘I went sledding and I liked it’ or ‘I went out on the lake,’ ” said Ms. Brickey. “She’s never been able to do that.”

Ease of use

Tablet computers are useful for students with disabilities because some of the applications available for them easily and cheaply replace bulky, expensive older forms of assistive technology.

For children with poor fine-motor skills, the touch-screen design is easier to use than a desktop computer with a mouse or a laptop with a touchpad. The screen’s size makes the gadget user-friendly for students with vision problems.

“For a child who may be a little slower learner, struggling with reading, has an arm that doesn’t work, the [tablet-style] computer has all these modalities, sound and touch. The technology can compensate for the special-needs kids in a way that traditional media cannot compensate,” said Elliot M. Soloway, a University of Michigan professor of education as well as of electrical engineering and computer science.

The machines offer a sense of independence many children, especially those with disabilities, may never have experienced before.

“When you find something, you tend to remember it. That’s exactly what will happen: When the kids find it as opposed to being told it, everything changes,” Mr. Soloway said. “The technology makes it possible to shift the control, easily.”

Caution!

But he cautioned schools from falling in love with the iPad before looking into other tablet computers on the market that may cost less.

“Schools are getting killed right now. To buy a very expensive device when you’re really trying to get finger-touch technology seems to be irresponsible,” he said. “They all have app stores.”

At High Road Academy of Baltimore County, West, in Dundalk, Md., Chance Connors arrived with a fear of math, an inability to sit still, and a deficit of patience, said his teacher, Jennifer Langmead.

These days, the 6th grader, who has been labeled as having an emotional disturbance, is happy to spend hours working on math problems on one of five iPads the students at his school share, she said.

'Math ninja'

Looking at a textbook page or worksheet of math problems might prompt Chance to give up and shut down before he’s even begun, Ms. Langmead said.

“He’s very intimidated by math,” she said. But an iPad application called Math Ninja — as the app puts it, “You aren’t just a normal kid. You’re a math ninja,” — starts off with a brief game, then presents one problem at a time.

While Ms. Langmead finds the electronic jingle that plays in the background mind-numbing, Chance hardly seems to notice it as he adds 10 and 6, 7 and 4, and then gets a chance to save his treehouse from a pack of robotic dogs.

In Orange County, Calif., school psychologist Bill L. Thompson said that while students with disabilities have used laptops for years, tablet-style machines offer new options for his students.

About 100 iPads are being used by some of the 550 students with disabilities he oversees through the Orange County department of education. They include students working on life skills who are using iPad applications to order food at restaurants and buy things at the grocery store. Students who need extra help managing time outside school also can use the iPad as a timer.

Other advantages of tablets are their simplicity and the ease with which they can be customized, important for all students, but especially those with special needs, he added. The touch screens offer instant gratification for students with limited patience or those who can’t understand the connection between a mouse and computer screen.

Apps for deaf

Many deaf students, for whom American Sign Language is their first language, graduate from high school with reading skills at a 4th grade level. There are iPad apps that connect the dots between an English idiom and the sign-language equivalent in a uniquely clear manner.

Special education applications have been in such demand that Apple created a page within its apps store to showcase them.

“It shows that Apple is interested in this market,” Mr. Niemeijer said, although “when they developed this technology, it was probably not the first thing they thought about.”

Source: Manila Bulletin

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