Anyone here with an autistic child thinking about getting an IPad?

[tavalon]

We're going tomorrow with our son to the Apple Store to look at the IPad and I was wondering if anyone here has already been using it for communication? There are already a ton of apps out there. I'd like to know if anyone has any experience with any of them, either on the IPad or ITouch.

[DCKit]

1. Speed learning.

Scary thought what an autistic kid might do with an Ipad.

[tavalon]

2. Speed learning?

[DCKit]

6. Don't be a dick, I was talking about the benefits to the autistic....

those kids have some scary skills we don't get.

Ignore them at your own peril.

On Edit:

Reading the following comments, you jumped in way too early with opinion.

[tavalon]

7. You read too much into my question

I didn't understand what you meant by speed learning. Our child, while not intellectually retarded does not seem to be a savant,a common assumption made by many who haven't met an autistic kid directly.

My kid gets plenty of attention and it was my OP. Asking what someone meant is perfectly reasonable.

[DCKit]

8. You may find out your kid is a savant if you give him/her the right tools.

I'm one of those who believes that everyone is special and have met many "retarded" people with peculiar/particular talents I could never match. I'd expose the kid to everything in the world to find out what hidden talent is waiting.

I wish you the best of everything.

[tavalon]

9. We know he's not retarded but having lived with this kiddo for a long time

finding out he's a savant at this late stage would be a surprise to all. Just getting to communicate with him would be gift enough and yeah, we've decided to shell out the money even if it comes to nothing. I know I couldn't live with myself if I just ignored this possibility. He's fairly clearly a happy kid most of the time but he isn't communicative and I would hate it if he had things he wanted us to know and things he wanted to understand from us that he can't.

[applegrove]

3. There was an article in this month's "the nation" about the man who was the first person

diagnosed with autism and his adult life. Really interesting.

[Old Codger]

4. Link

Leslie Clark and her husband have been trying to communicate with their autistic 7-year-old son, JW, for years, but until last month, the closest they got was rudimentary sign language.He's "a little bit of a mini-genius," Clark says, but like many autistic children, JW doesn't speak at all. Desperate to communicate with him, she considered buying a specialized device like the ones at his elementary school in Lincoln, Neb. But the text-to-speech machines are huge, heavy and expensive; a few go for $8,000 to $10,000.Then a teacher told her about a new application that a researcher had developed for, of all things, the iPhone and iPod Touch. Clark drove to the local Best Buy and picked up a Touch, then downloaded the "app" from iTunes.

Total cost: about $500.




http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-05-27-iphone-autism_N.htm

[tavalon]

5. Yeah, I've been reading stories like this everywhere

It's like the overnight sensation for autistic kids. But I was wondering if any one here had first person information.