As part of its show interviewing Steve Jobs’s biographer, CBS’s 60 Minutes took a good look at the way iPad apps can help autistic people communicate. (We covered this in June of last year.) The video segment is 13 minutes long, but for people who don’t have that much time 60 Minutes also posted the script in the form of an article.
The story covers both adults and children, and shows ways that the iPad provides communication tools to let parents and teachers learn things about autistic children that they never knew before. One ten-year-old autistic child was thought to have “the IQ and attention span of a toddler,” but turned out to have a surprisingly large vocabulary when tested with an iPad vocabulary app.
I find it remarkable that iPads can help some people express themselves, possibly for the very first time in their lives. That may be an even better use of the technology than reading e-books.
I found that the report had a distinct “iPad fanboy” flavor to it. Assistive technologies for autism and other cognitive / speech impairments have been around for a very long time and the iPad is just one device in a field of many. I wish the report had done more of a broad overview of the software across many platforms (including the far more realistically priced Android tablet devices) as being the real innovation. There was a missed opportunity here to inform others about affordable devices for families in need, and everyone else in a bad economy.
iPad is nice (I own one), but it’s not better than the wheel. Stop treating the device like it is.
Yeah … anyone says anything good about the iPhone or iPad ? You’re a FANBOY !!!! Yeahhhh !!!