iPad Use in Special Education

iPads are exceptionally useful in the classroom, specifically when being used by special education students. Their hands on learning techniques along with engaging sounds and colors make them perfect for those with all different learning styles, including the mentally delayed students. Teachers must jump on the band wagon and discover for themselves why the iPad is being deemed as a miracle device.

Having access to so many different special education applications puts teachers at a huge advantage. Often times, it is difficult to engage students with special needs. However, technology has allowed many students the opportunity to excel in assignments they once found impossible. Take for example the iWriteWords app. For a student who struggles with simple abilities such as holding a pencil or putting words down on paper, this application is great. iWriteWords app teaches the child handwriting skills while also engaging them in a game. The student can use their finger to connect lines and form letters as well as drag words to make sentences. The narrator on the application repeats the letters and forms the words so that the students can hear it pronounced as well as look at it as a formed word. 

Special education teachers can also use applications like MeeGenius! Kids' Books to read to their students and keep the children engaged. This application in particular has access to hundreds of children's books that can be pulled up and read on the iPad. There is a read-along technology that highlights the text as the narrator is reading, allowing students to not only hear the words being pronounced, but also be able to see which words they are on the screen. MeeGenuius! Kids' Books offers animations that students can watch while the book is being read to better make visual connections. Features such as this make story time more appealing to students, especially those with special needs. 

For the severely handicapped, effective iPad software can be purchased in order to communicate and share emotions with simple skin to template contact. The most valuable of these applications being Proloquo2Go. This app is being implemented by special education teachers, speech pathologists and psychologists in various settings. This application serves its purpose best for non-verbal students. Allotted with several different categories, Proloquo2Go has options such as greetings, feelings, food, etc. The student can sit with the teacher, or whoever he or she is needing to communicate with, and touch pictures to place into their speak box. The student may touch a picture for a feeling and play the audio back in place of them speaking personally. The teacher who is observing the child is able to understand their thought process in a way much easier than having them write it down. The application makes for quicker access to a discussion on the end of both the teacher and the student.   

Several skills are brought together in one when a child is engaging in an Ipad app. What has been observed is that students are having so much fun using the iPad that they don't even recognize the significant amount of learning they are doing. Consequently, students are able to contain their focus even longer and become more successful in the classrooms. 

References: 

Children's Books Come Alive Image. Retrieved September 9, Year, from: http://www.mactrast.com/2011/02/children’s-books-come-alive-on-ipad/

Ipad For Learning Case Study. Retrieved September 20, 2012, from: http://www.ipadsforeducation.vic.edu.au/ipad-education-case-studies/10-warringa-park-school

Kevin G. Gilbert/Staff Photographer. 2012. Ipad Collaboration. Retrieved:August 29, 2012. from:http://www.herald-mail.com/news/tristate. 

Proloquo2Go™ [Image]. 2012. Retrieved: August 29, 2012. from: http://www.assistiveware.com/product/proloquo2go. 

Ray, M. (Reporter) (2011). iPads Used by Students With Special Needs(Video). Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAr3CLxT-X0.