Improving Learning Outcomes: The iPad and Preschool Children with Disabilities

Abstract

The digital age has reached early childhood, and the use of touch screens by young children is common place. Research on the use of touch screen tablets with young children is becoming more prevalent; however, less information is available on the use of touch screen tablets to support young children with disabilities. Touch screen tablets may offer possibilities to preschool children with disabilities to participate in learning in a digital way. The iPad provides easy interaction on the touch screen and access to a multitude of engaging early learning applications. This paper summarizes a pilot study with 8 young children with disabilities included in a preschool classroom, who were given iPads to use in class and at home for a period of 21 weeks. Systematic observations, classroom assessments, and teacher and parent interviews documented the improvements in learning outcomes for each child in many areas including, but not limited to: shape and color recognition, letter recognition, and tracing letters throughout six research cycles.

Interactive Apps Promote Learning of Basic Mathematics in Children With Special Educational Needs and Disabilities

“…In addition, some apps, such as those evaluated in this study, require pupils to attend to visual demonstrations and understand verbal instructions so pupils with attentional, language, and/or intellectual difficulties may struggle to engage with the software. Although most previous research reports SEND pupils have positive experiences of using touch-screen tablets and high levels of engagement (Strnadova and Cumming, 2013 ; Chmiliar, 2017 ; Khoo, 2017 ) if they find interacting with the technology difficult, because of their disabilities, they may not enjoy this type of instruction so could disengage with the learning process. Assistive aids, either built into the tablet technology or external to the technology, can be used to overcome some of these difficulties (Dell et al, 2017 ), but these are not always available in low income countries, such as Malawi.…”

“…Despite the potential for tablet technology coupled with high-quality educational apps to support the learning of pupils with SEND, there is little empirical evidence demonstrating that this technology is an effective means of instructional delivery for raising learning standards (Chmiliar, 2017 ). A recent systematic review of the existing evidence of the effectiveness of touch-screen tablets in primary and secondary schools for raising learning outcomes of mainstream pupils is limited and fragmented ( Haβler et al ., 2016 ).…”

“…Most studies exploring the utility of touch-screen tablets with SEND pupils are qualitative in nature (Khoo, 2017 ) or report on testimonials from parents and educators as to their effectiveness (Shah, 2011 ). These exploratory studies have indicated that tablet technology can provide an effective means of learning support for pupils with SEND, especially in the early years (see Chmiliar, 2017 ), but this needs to be validated by studies that quantify learning gains.…”

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“…Touch screen tablets can be a potential tool to support children with special learning needs. Chmiliar [17] conducted a pilot study to examine the use of iPads with eight preschool children with disabilities aged three to five. The study was carried out in an inclusive preschool program.…”

Research Foundations for Evidence-Informed Early Childhood Intervention Performance Checklists

“…There is a considerable amount of evidence that assistive technology can have a host of positive child outcomes [205,211,[217][218][219][220][221] as well as have positive family benefits; for example, [198,222]. The child benefits include, but are not limited to, increased child participation in everyday social and nonsocial activities and improved child learning in the activities.…”