Technology Gives Voice

Special Needs Children Benefit from Todays Technology

Thanks to Getty Images @gettyimages for making this photo available freely on Unsplash 🎁 https://unsplash.com/photos/QFXKv0uf6YU

I’ve heard the argument that children should not be allowed technology until a certain age, and where I agree with that to a point, technology is often a lifeline and voice to children with disabilities, non verbal children need communication devices and often those come in the form of iPads are tablets of some sort.

When I had the opportunity to work with Special needs children through an R.O.P Childcare class in the mid nineties, technology was far less advanced, IPads of course did not exist at the time, but non verbal children were given talking boards, similar to the one showed below, and though those boards proved invaluable for some the communication boards did not work well for everyone.

Anthony Wennerberg This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. You are free: to share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work to remix — to adapt the work Under the following conditions: attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. share alike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same or compatible license as the original. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/PatientCommTbl2.jpg

In that mid nineties Special Needs Classroom a good portion of the children were non verbal, some had cerebral palsy, some were severely developmentally disabled, there were children with Autism as well as Down Syndrome, and these boards opened up doors to some but unfortunately not all, there were children who were spastic which made being able to point to what they were trying to say difficult if not impossible. But IPads, tablet, eye…