iPads help certain special needs children communicate - AmericaNowNews.com

iPads help special needs children communicate

Four-year-old Sam Slemp of Huntsville has a unique genetic condition that has recently been discovered.

He has never communicated with his mother, Margie. Sam was recently given an iPad with hopes it could help him.

"We are really hopeful the iPad will open up, will allow him to do some cause and effect apps and eventually allow him to communicate through it," she said.

Gary James of Connecticut founded Apps for Children with Special Needs, a website that reviews and previews apps for aiding children with special needs.

James, the father of a special needs child, says by raising money, his group was able to provide 50 free iPads for 50 special needs parents in all fifty states.

"Devices in the past cost anywhere from four to ten thousand dollars. iPads cost $500 dollars. Apps cost two to three hundred. It makes it difficult to parents who can't afford [a] $7,000 piece of equipment," James said.

Eleven-year-old Constance Faith Hodum of Tennessee immediately took to the iPad.

"What I'm really hoping is that she will be able more to communicate with us in the apps available on this." John Hodum, Constance's father, said.

Certainly these parents have high hopes these iPads will open a new world of communication for their children and they already know what sort of communication they want to hear from their children.

"I would love to hear 'mommie,'" Slemp said.
     
"[Constance] is eleven years old and I never heard her say 'dad.' That would be the ultimate for me to hear her, to use this when I come in and to say dad I love you," Hodum said.

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