Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

11.7.11 | I’ve watched with growing attention advocates and parents of children with autism appear in the press talking about how new touch screen technology is helping kids with severe autism better communicate and interact with the world.

This latest story from “60 Minutes” caught my eye last week. Lesley Stahl visited the Beverley School in Toronto, where half the students are severely autistic. Teachers there say that for some students, the power of this technology has been remarkable.

“They’re engaged with it in a way that we don’t see with other toys or puzzles or teaching tools,” Stacie Carroll, one of the school’s teachers, told Stahl.

The students use apps on the iPad’s touch screen interface to practice numbers and letters, identify feelings, and, for non-verbal students as young as 7, to actually talk and communicate their ideas for the first time. The students are using applications that allow them to point to images, and the tablet speaks the word for them. 

“What we’re thinking is that the device is constant,” Carroll said. “So the voice is constant. The pacing is constant. It waits. I might not wait as long.”

Rhonda McEwen, an assistant professor of information at the University of Toronto, is leading one of the first studies examining how iPads are being used with these students in classroom settings. McEwen told “60 Minutes” that initial responses have been very positive, but she looks forward to gathering data overtime. “Learning to play with language,” as she sees these young students doing on the iPad, is a first step in communicating.

Teachers at the Beverley school emphasize that different students respond to technologies in different ways, and that not all autistic students should be using the iPad to help reach their developmental goals. But for some students, it does enable them to communicate what they know, and it assists caregivers in identifying students’ knowledge and interests.  One student was shown matching pictures to words, demonstrating a much wider vocabulary than the teacher expected.

Watching this reminded me of a more measured take on the explosion in iPad apps for autistic children from Daniel Donahoo. Blogging at Wired earlier this year, Donahoo wrote that while helpful, this technology is not a miracle for kids with autism. Helping to calm down a child, or helping that child focus briefly, is not always a developmental opportunity.  The nature of autism, he reminds readers, is that it affects the broad spectrum of an individual child’s development. “No two children can be supported in exactly the same way,” he writes.

Donahoo offers a few tips to keep in mind:

• While there are some apps that are more specific to use with children with autism (like AAC apps), all apps can provide developmental experience depending on how they are used and the child’s own developmental trajectory and interests. You can’t have a “Top 10 Autism Apps.”
• Given the need for professionals to be able to effectively use the tools as a therapy and developmental device, governments should be investing in the infrastructure and training in using the iPad for health professionals, educators and others who work with children with autism and other disabilities.
• The iPad is an attractive digital device. It can be used for children with a disability as an effective developmental transition tool. But don’t confine a child to an iPad. If they start drawing on the iPad, think about having another go with the crayons.

Read his full post here. And watch the “60 Minutes” segment on iPads and autism below.