The Autism Language Program at Children’s Hospital Boston has a rather straightforward philosophy that it lays out on its Web site: “In our evaluations, we try to connect a child’s needs with available and appropriate technology. When such technology does not exist, we make every effort to develop it.” As the director of the program, Howard Shane has done just that, spending more than three decades applying, prescribing and developing technology to help improve the communication and learning skills of children on the autism spectrum.
Dr. Howard Shane, presenter at KiDA's 3rd Annual Summit on Autism
And as a presenter at KiDA’s third-annual Summit on Autism, the speech-language pathology specialist will share some of the insights he has gained working with children and families. Shane’s presentation, which is part of the “Technology and Its Impact on Autism” panel, is titled “Aligning the Features of Assistive Technology With the Characteristics of Autism”.
“The summit is important because the more information, the better for families,” says Shane. “It’s important to come to understand some of the benefits of technology. Technology is giving children with autism opportunities that weren’t available to them before.”
Many of those opportunities today are in mobile technology – namely, the iPad and other tablets, he says, which are making a major difference now and setting the stage for new possibilities for both the platform and the apps that run on them.
“The advent of the iPad isn’t the beginning of technology, it’s the next step, the next generation, but it’s a very important leap,” says Shane. “It’s going to make technology more accessible and more affordable. We’re moving into a next phase where the features of the mobile technology will allow for the next generation of apps that will go beyond what we’re used to seeing.”
Shane says his presentation will provide parents with a better understanding of what mobile technologies can do, as well as practical suggestions and the benefits from using the technology, such as more effective communication, learning, recreation and rewards. In doing so, he’ll discuss the following:
- Technologies for children who have difficulty in expressive communication;
- The ways technology can help children comprehend what’s being said by using visual tools to increase the understanding of language;
- And the apps that allow for the creation of visual schedules that help clarify and put in order, with symbols and pictures, the schedule of the day and the sequence of learning activities for children with autism.
“Basically, these are ways of doing things that are easier with technology than trying to create them in the old way with pencil and paper,” says Shane.
Many of the topics in his presentation come from his current research projects. Some of these include things like the development, for the iPad, of animation graphics to help children with the understanding of verbs, adjectives and prepositions. And Shane and his colleagues are creating a virtual world that will help individuals learn concepts that are often elusive to people with autism, he says. In a virtual kitchen, for example, characters will help the children grasp activities like setting the table and identifying the labels of objects in that room. The virtual world will feature similar learning-based environments for a bathroom, living room, playground and a doctor’s office.
“Our research is making language easier for children with autism to understand, and it’s the technology that provides such a good platform for them to learn about language in this way. There are so many aspects of this developing mobile technology that are going to be extraordinary for individuals to help improve their independence.”
**For a list of current research projects and a timeline of research projects since 1980, please visit the Web site for Children’s Hospital Boston’s Autism Language Program.
Tickets are available for KiDA’s third annual Summit on Autism, held September 17, 2011, at UC Irvine’s Bren Events Center. To learn more, visit www.kida.com/summit or call 949.222.2214.
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