Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder Recieving Help from Assistive Technology or Communication Technology

It is estimated that one in every sixty eight children will be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (CDC, 2014). In schools around the country these students are struggling in their classroom environment due to deficits in three areas; communication skills, social skills, and repetitive behaviors or interest (Marder & Fraser, 2012). Implementing the use of technology in the classroom like iPad, iPod, android tablets, e-readers, and computers is beneficial to students with autism spectrum disorder. It can increase communication skills, can help make their classroom experience more pleasant, and it gives them the best chance at success.

iPads and tablets have become a popular choice of teachers in many classrooms worldwide due to the positive impact it has on the students. Tablets offer a wide variety of educational applications that have the ability to be downloaded onto the tablet for the students to use. The use of tablets in the classroom, “offer a unique home-school connection by providing students with a classroom experience that relates to the technology-saturated real world” (Blackwell, 2013, pg. 233) The use of iPads and tablets in the classroom provides students with a hands on learning approach to any

Have you ever experience a moment when you were unable to communicate your words, or couldn’t think of the word to use the feeling you were trying to describe? Everyone has felt this way before, possibly multiple times per day. But the reality is for the people in our community with autism, this is a constant feeling of difficulty to communicate effective with others. The people that are diagnosed with autism face the daily obstacles of being unable to use their voice and having to learn different ways to read body language and tone of voice, something that comes fairly easy to most of us. The communication barriers facing people with autism enable us to work past the differences and find a new way of communicating that is effective for them.

Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) encompasses those forms of communication excluding oral speech which enable an individual to express themselves (Bondy & Frost, 1994). It replicates non-functional speech for those individuals with verbal or language difficulties through augmentative aides (Light & Drager, 2007). Recent technological advances have resulted in the availability of electronic devices which can convert text and picture and communication boards, to generate voice output. As a consequence, individuals with communication challenges accessing alternative means with which to express themselves, and in effect improve their social interaction, academic achievements, whilst gaining increased self-determination (Light & Drager, 2007).

Samantha Light, grade 1 teacher at St. Juans catholic elementary in Toronto, Ontario noticed that her students learn better when they use technology, such as iPads. Light wants to make learning more enjoyable not only for her students, but kids everywhere, as she thinks it will make students want to participate in their teachers lessons more.

Communication is significant issue for many children with autism. They do not contact with other people clearly, and they also have many issues in using the language correctly. In the article “Cerebellum, Language, and Cognition in Autism and Specific Language Impairment” Hodge (2010) writes that children with autism have difficulties at the individual understands (receptive language) as well as what is actually spoken by the individual (expressive language) are significantly delayed or nonexistent. In other words, children with autism face difficulties to express their thoughts clearly or response to other people. However, In the article “Making Meaningful Worlds: Role-Playing Subcultures and the Autism Spectrum” Fein (2015) claims that there

Autism is a developmental problem that affects a small percentage of the young population adult in the United States. Autism is associated with developmental problems that often result in young adults not being able to live their full lives and realize their full potential. Autism is a subject that has been discussed in several journals as professionals seek to find adequate solutions to help children living with autism. Health institutions across the country have taken a variety of steps to help children with autism live a normal life just as other ordinary children. The rapid advancements in technology in the twenty-first century have been pivotal in the general push to help young adults with autism, and the future holds a brighter future for them. The purpose of this literature review is to provide

Some individuals with autism may use symbols to support themselves when they are communicating. For example, they could arrange the symbols in a certain way on a board or on their computer screen to assist with communicating. On some occasions the symbols have words written underneath which can help the ‘listener’ if they are not familiar with the particular symbol.

Based on the external evidence, incidental teaching can be an effective approach for children with autism and limited expressive language. Incidental teaching was evolved from Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and involves creating an environment that the client will find exciting (McGee, G. G., Morrier, M. J., & Daly, T., 1999). This environment is normally familiar but includes toys or activates that the child would find desirable. The client then initiates incidental teaching by requesting or gesturing the desired toy or activity. After the client has initiated a want the teacher then prompts them for an expansion of their request (Ledford, J. R., Gast, D. L., Luscre, D., & Ayres, K. M., 2007). New information and giving the client practice

Children that have Autism generally have trouble expressing emotions. Some children with Autism may not be aware that they are being disruptive. By teaching children with Autism at young age proper communication skills will only benefit them at an older age. There is an approach called the Hanen approach for building communication skills to children with Autism. It contains three principals 1. The pivotal role of parents and caregivers(recognizing that parents play a vital role in there child’s speech.) 2. The importance of starting early (children who start early have the best results). 3. The power of “everyday” (children learn to communicate not by being taught but by being a part of everyday conversations with parents and children).

According to research conducted by Elizabeth R. Lorah and others concluded four of five boys with autism preferred iPads as a speech generating device (SGD) over picture exchange (PE) (Lorah 648). Picture Exchange is when someone points to images to communicate what they want or how they are feeling. PEs can be either printed or on a device pertaining to only PEs. Although SGDs perform the same as PEs, they can speak aloud the images; a person nearby is not required to translate the pictures to words. Lorah’s article states that “using a device such as an iPad™ as a SGD may be more normalizing and less stigmatizing for a person with a disability than a PE notebook...A child carrying and using an iPad™ may be viewed as quite typical, if not envied by peers and others in the natural environment” (Lorah 638). The iPad not only is more acceptable to peers, but the device can hold multiple apps besides digitalized speech. Each boy had the same amount of class time and therapy time, however, none of the boys had had formal experience with SGDs or PEs prior to the study (Lorah 639). An autistic child with an iPad as a SGD has the choice to download nonnative apps targeted toward them, even though many of them are similar to PEs. One of the apps is called Pain by Lingraphica. This application is a free PE type of app where there are listed facial expressions of pain ranging from “no pain”

Within the world we live in today many different disorders and disabilities are up rising more and more. Out of many of these disorders and disabilities, communication disorder is one area that is not always understood but is becoming more visible. Communication disorder can be an impairment with speech, language and/or hearing ability. This impairment affects the way humans receive, send, process and comprehend verbal, nonverbal and graphic symbols from other humans or other sources. Particularly, a communication disorder that is becoming more aware in society is autism. Just like any disorder or disability, if one person has autism several other people, including that person, are influenced and affected by the disorder. These people

The topic for today's reading was Augmentative Communication Systems-Sign Languages, PECS. In the assigned reading and module, we observe that a characteristic of autism is difficulty developing and using verbal speech to communicate with others. The Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) is used to help children with autism to develop a system for communicating with others across multiple environments. It is used most often with learners that are non-verbal, but can also be used with learners with limited verbal skills. PECS can be used across age ranges, starting in preschool, to help individuals with ASD communicate with others. In fact, research has shown that learners can use PECS to increases their work production

Visual communication is an essential skill use to enhance verbal abilities, especially for children with autism. Our surroundings are filled with visual stimulus such as technologies, billboards, televisions, books and magazines, and even in architecture. Since children with autism struggle with communication skills it is imperative to research all possible avenues of approaches that can lead to the enhancement of communication for children who have autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In the article “Implementing visuals strategies during play groups: The promising effects on social-communication skills for children with autism” written by authors M. Charlop, A. Greenberg, published in the journal of Evidence-based Communication Assessment and Intervention on September 2010. Provides a research study designed to provide visual prompts to enhance play related language throughout each stage of research.

Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) strategies first arose in the early 1980’s when creators began developing expressive communication tools in order to assist those with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) (Shane et al., 2012). During that time, it was finally being understood that people with developmental disabilities