Owen 7, is a not the force flexibility a mouse computer, but when a nurse seconded at your fingertips iPad his friend in June, he did something that his mother had never seen before.
He aimed his left finger pointer to an icon on the screen, he touched - just - and opened application Gravitarium, who plays the music that users create landscapes of stars on the screen. Over the years parents Owen had tried several gear communications computer to give him to escape his handicap but the iPad was the first who worked on the first try.
"We spent all this time keep alive, and now we need him more than," said his mother, Ellen Goldstein, Vice President of the association of business alliance of Times Square. "I think its ability to communicate and learn as much of this challenge - not all, but a large part of it." And so is my responsibility.
Since its inception in April, the iPad became a tool of popular therapy for people with disabilities of all kinds, although that person keeps track of how much is used in this way and studies receive only underway to test its effectiveness, which varies according to the diagnosis.
A speech therapist to Walter Reed Army Medical Center uses text-to-speech applications to give patients a voice. Christopher Bulger, one 16 years in Chicago injured in a car accident the spine used an iPad to navigate on the Internet in the early stages of its rehabilitation when her hands were closed fist. "It was fun because you grew join to join the screen using finger," he said.
Parents of autistic children use applications to teach basic skills such as brushing teeth and communicate better.
For a traditional technological device as the iPad instantly adopted by persons with disabilities is unusual. It is much more common for components designed for persons with disabilities to be adapted for General, such as closed captioning on TV in gyms or GPS devices in vehicles that use branches. In addition, most consumer devices do not come with built-ins as the iPad captioning, expansion and functions of audio playback - who were supposed to keep it simple for all users, but also help people with disabilities.
"Less complicated things can actually do a lot of money," said Gregg c. Vanderheiden, a Professor of engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who has worked on issues of accessibility for decades.
Representative Edward j. Markey, a Democrat of Massachusetts, who wrote recently adopted require mobile devices to be more accessible to users with disabilities, said about three quarters of the communications and video devices need to be adapted for blind and deaf people. "Apple", he said in a statement, "is a flap when it comes to devices that are available in the box".
The iPad is, generally speaking, cheaper than computers and other gadgets specifically designed to help people with disabilities to speak, read or write. While insurers do not usually cover the cost of such as the iPad mobile devices because they are not medical equipment, in some cases they will pay for applications that run on them.
Owen, grandmother bought him an iPad $ 600 in August and his parents have invested about $200 more in software. One day this summer promise his finger on the title page of "Alice in Wonderland" on his iPad, while his mother ranged over his shoulder in their house in Brooklyn. Then, with most movements and the sensitivity of a touchscreen iPad, Owen has begun to turn the pages of the book. "You're reading a book on your own, Owen!" Ms. Goldstein, 44, exclaimed. "It's wonderful completely.
But while the sensitivity of the touch screen of the iPad makes promising for Owen, it can be problematic for others, such as Glenda Watson Hyatt, a blogger in Surrey, British Colombia, who has cerebral palsy. "When ' flipping screens, sometimes I return more than one screen," Ms. Hyatt wrote in an e-mail interview. "Or I touch that I had no intention of".
Yet Ms. Hyatt said that when she found it difficult to chat with friends at a bar recently, she pulled her iPad to help communicate and considers normal. "People were attracted to it because it was a"known"or"known"technology, piece" she wrote in a blog ticket examine the device.
In the Centre of Berger, a clinic for rehabilitation of spinal cord in Atlanta, some tetraplegic adolescents received iPads in the form of donations, but they don't work well for those who rely on a stick of mouse - essentially a long pen controlled by mouth.
"He wants to see a finger," said John Anschutz, the Shepherd assistive technology program manager. "It really quality skin and mass to operate."
Owen Cain, whose disease is physical, mental, the iPad has limitations, too. Moving his finger while on the keypad remains a challenge and writing is difficult. Ms. Goldstein said that his versatility, and affordability, however, have been a boon. It has been experimenting with a variety of applications - Proloquo2Go, allowing him to touch an icon which invites the device to talk about things like, "I need to go to the bathroom." Math Magic, allowing the arithmetic practice. and the game of the animal, a memory game.
"Everything you're worrying about is 'I can try this program, I can try this program, I can buy this app or I can buy this app', and investment is much lower,"said his mother"if our ability to explore and experiment with different things is so big."
When Owen was approximately 8 weeks old mother noticed that his pending right arm. It leads to a crushing diagnosis: the disease called neuron spinal muscular atrophy type 1. An article by New York Times, 2003 on spinal muscular atrophy has said that her parents had said that owen would be "paralyzed for life, predicts physicians will last not more than two years."
Owen transform 8 November 11. While its State should not be worse, it is highly susceptible to infection and once almost died of pneumonia. three specialized therapists and a nurse to keep alive.
Although he does not speak, her parents have learned to read, write and do math. It has a playfulness sense of humor and love of the "Star Wars". "It is a normal child trapped in a body not normal," said his father, Hamilton Cain, 45, a book publisher.
Since he has received the iPad, Owen was trying to read books and playing Air Guitar applications. And one day it was typed on the keypad, "I want to be Han Solo for Halloween."
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