iPad and Autism

So, as an attempt to "normalize" my son with his activities, we decided to take the plunge and get him an iPad. If left to his own devices, the boy will occupy himself with "inappropriate" activities. Not inappropriate in a negative or bad sense, but inappropriate to what a child should be doing at this age. He is a hoarder, stacker, liner upper, dump and filler, etc instead of a "player". Even though I am not thrilled about introducing "computer/video games" to him at such a young age, I figured that if he could do something like a video game, he would be engaging and learning, vs. spinning his wheels with unmeaningful activities. We first thought about using one of our old PCs for him to use, but as hard as we have tried, he cannot make the connection between moving the mouse, clicking, etc and its associating to whats happening on the screen. The same holds true for Wii, PS3, etc. He needs to be hands on in order to get it. As much as I would have loved to put a huge SmartBoard in the house, we neither have the money or the wall space! So we opted for an iPad.

Can I tell you it has been nothing but miraculous?

He can do it. He can navigate to find his "games", work within them, and close them out when he is done. He is following the directions of what "it" is telling him to do, and he can engage for a decent amount of time (like, long enough for me to crank something out!). He also can reciprocate his activities to "show" someone else how to do it.

When doing school work, one on one work, or even his own "play behaviors", he jumps from one thing to the other. It's like living with a whirlwind. With this he TAKES HIS TIME.

Off the "apps" we have installed, the best ones so far are the "doodle" apps (Cookie Doodle, Cake Doodle, and the lesser used but more parent enjoyed Jelly Doodle). Cooking and decorating cookies, cakes and jello without the mess is fine by me!!