The iPad is becoming increasingly democratic in academic mount , adorn everything fromundergraduate lecture hallsto medical schools tograde - level classrooms . But the iPad ’s educational USA do n’t stop there . Intellipad’snew Intellipad 1.0 iPad app aims to make Apple ’s pill more useful for special breeding , particularly kids learning to read , indite , and transmit .
“ I find as though the iPad was develop specifically with the special needs child in mind , ” Cheryl Bregman , Director of Intellipad and an occupational therapist , toldMacworld . “ It is interactive , delivers a direct cause - and - effect human relationship , and provides opportunities to learn materials in a multi - sensory way . ”
Even Apple’slatest iPad 2 commercialshows off the tablet ’s educational exponent , featuring several apps that can be used to learn a new language , topic , or instrument . Yet there are n’t as many apps available for special needs children and students . In fact , Bregman and the Intellipad squad — made up of occupational and speech therapists — decide to create Intellipad 1.0 because they could not find an app that ease writing for individual with disablement . A lower - case letter of the alphabet keyboard , in special , was important to the mathematical group , “ to correspond with the letter forms the students use to pick up to read and write , ” Bregman say .
Intellipad 1.0 features a totally customizable keyboard . Users can create a lower - character letter keyboard , as well as convert the font , colouring material , and number of usable Key . Words , prison term , and even sound can be specify to unlike keys , piss it possible to plan a keyboard to fit a student ’s individual needs and learning process . For instance , if a student is stimulate problem finding the letters of her name on the keyboard , an educator can customize the keyboard to have fewer keys to choose from .
Other features let in text - to - speech communication in six different vox , image funding , word anticipation , tour check , and an unified notepad . substance abuser can also netmail and impress documents from within the app . Keyboard configurations and documents are saved into folder , allowing multiple scholarly person to portion out the same iPad .
While there are interchangeable desktop software program offering , Bregman notes that these can get dearly-won and might want additional hardware . With the iPad , however , educators and healer get an all - inclusive machine for helping students with special pauperism . Bregman points out , “ The iPad is tight becoming an all-important part of the therapist ’s toolbox : We can get at apps to aim almost any finish area , including verbal expression , speech fluency … and so on . ”
The Intellipad app itself has a motley of uses . Though it serve special needs scholarly person teach to study and write , Intellipad 1.0 can double as a communication gadget for both children and adult who have suffered speech loss stimulate by medical precondition such as a stroke or powerful muscular dystrophy , and at a humbled cost than other available Augmented and Assistive Communication ( AAC ) technologies . Bregman plans to admit support for other languages as well . For now , the app support English only .
Intellipad 1.0 is available on the App Store for $ 20 . It requires an iPad running iOS 4.3 or later .
