KOAM TV 7 Joplin and PittsburgiPad helping kids with autism to communicate

The Apple iPad is known for doing a number of things but here in the Four States it is helping some children diagnosed with autism.

Dakota began working with the Ozark Center for Autism last fall.  Since the communication device that he used was destroyed in the tornado he has been working with the iPad since June.

His teacher, Amber Ponder, says Dakota has made a lot of progress.

"It's such a typical thing for people to have, you would look at him and you wouldn't know he doesn't speak and having the iPad just makes him one step to being more typical," says Amber Ponder, a special education teacher at Ozark Center for Autism.  "With the iPad that's existing his expressive skills since he doesn't talk, using words like a lot of people do, he can type in what he wants and what he needs and it will speak for him and we can use it to help him develop some of those verbal skills as well."

Every child or adult diagnosed with autism is unique and some progress more quickly than others.  The materials that are used for teaching children with autism ranges but is typically hands on.

"It really has opened up a whole new world of choices for us as far as how we can teach and how quickly we can access different materials," says Jennifer Kirby, the Clinical Director for the Ozark Center for Autism.  "On an iPad we have different examples of many different things at our fingertips, not to mention games and apps that are geared toward specific learning."

Trying to figure out which game to play on her break time Regan learned to talk at the Center.  Her mom says she is a book of knowledge but sometimes has problems expressing herself.

"She has a huge vocabulary but she doesn't have great clarity so sometimes we have to hand her the iPad and she can type what she's wanting to tell us or show us," says Regan's mother, Amanda Dillard.

Amanda has another daughter with autism and bought an iPad for them to use at their home which the Center's director says has become a trend among many parents.

"When you think about how much an iPad costs, plus the app for communication, it is much less then the communication devices the family used to have to purchase," says Kirby.

The Ozark Center for Autism plans to rebuild a new location in a few years.

The clinical director says there are seven iPads the children use for learning but hopes to get one for each one of the 17 children.