With the Help of an iPad

The amount of technological advancements, in some American's eyes, may be hindering the social setting or just over-complicating life in general. I take the opposite point of view; technology has helped us in a vast amount of ways and may even be one of the most important advancements of the 21st century.

One of the most important ways technology has helped us, in my opinion, is in the education arena. The ability for information to travel instantaneously and across borders has enabled us to know so much more and in such a less amount of time. Specifically, I have been intrigued by the amount of work done with children with disabilities and the iPad.

There are several stories out there about the iPad helping disabled children around the world, but one in particular caught my eye. SNApps4Kids, a community of parents, therapists, and educators, taps into a burgeoning trend for people with disabilities. Touch devices are revolutionizing the lives of children, adults, and seniors with special needs. An estimated 40,000 apps have been developed for this demographic.

Take for example, Noah Rahman, who has moderate Cerebral Palsy. The disease affects his communication, cognition and upper and lower body movement. When he turned two, his language, cognitive ability and fine motor skills were diagnosed by a developmental specialist as being at least 12 months behind...Then he got an iPad.

Four months later, his language and cognition were on par with his age level. His fine motor skills had made significant leaps. Today, the 3-year-old spends an hour or two on his iPad each day. He switches his apps between reading and writing in English, Arabic, and Spanish -- that's more than I know!! His dad explained that "the iPad unlocked his motivation and his desire to learn because it's fun." For people lacking motor skills, touch screens are more intuitive devices. There is no mouse, keyboard, or pen intercepting their communication with the screen.

An article I found on Mashable laid out 4 ways that the iPad is changing the lives of people with disabilities. First and foremost, they explain how it is changing lives as a communicator. Before the iPad, touch-to-speak technology was incredibly expensive. Now, the relative affordability of the iPad has made the technology more available for children and adults that cannot use their voice. With the simple touch of an iPad, a hungry non-verbal person can easily communicate exactly what they would like to eat. Those apps can then be customized with photos or features to suit an individual's life and needs.And the fact that these are applications and not full-blown software systems, explains the ability to easily update and change things around if need be.

The second reason they lay out is as a therapeutic device. If you're someone with a disability,  having something that other people are using makes you feel like part of the in-crowd. Another co-founder of SNApps4Kids' son, Vincent, a young boy with Down syndrome has found the iPad most useful. While he can walk, Vincent prefers to sit still most of the time. Throughout his life, his parents and therapists have tried to help him be more active. It was not until his physical therapist placed an iPad on a treadmill that Vincent was motivated to walk. He now stays on for almost 10 minutes -- an incredible feat for him -- interacting with his iPad while he's in motion.

The fact that the iPad can be used as an educational tool is also another important reason as to how it is changing the lives of not only disabled persons, but people around the world in general too. A number of apps out there address academic subjects from math to language to reading and writing. In Ocotober 2010, Apple even featured an 'Apps for Special Education' section in the App Store. Even the iTunesU app puts the world's largest online catalog of free education content into an easily accessible form. The iPad is also more intuitive for children, it's like fish to water. I've seen kids being introduced to the iPad for the first time and it is incredible how quickly they catch on and adapt to the new technology.

Finally, the iPad is a great behavior monitor. Several apps out there can take notes, record good and bad behavior to be later reviewed, and then turn this information into visual graphs and charts. It can also be a great way to strengthen and reinforce memory for seniors with Alzheimer's or memory loss. Other apps can tell users and remind them when it is time to take medication. There even has been stories of how hospitals have begun using FaceTime for moms with infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. "BabyTime" as they call it, can help bridge communication with the family and the baby's medical team and is an excellent use of technology to help new mothers bond with their babies, even when they cannot be physically at their babies' bedside.

As you can see, these new technological advances have actually done quite a lot for us. Not just the iPad alone, Androiders I'm including you in here too. Some may look at it as a disruption to the family dinner time but others look at it as a once in a lifetime opportunity to defeat the odds with several different types of disabilities. As time moves on, I believe technology will evolve even more and make more breakthroughs in this area. I believe it is honestly one of the greatest inventions of my generation.