Mediating sociality: the use of iPod Touch™ devices in the classrooms of students with autism in Canada

Abstract

This study explores the roles that lower-cost, handheld touch technologies might play in the communication functions of children diagnosed on the autism spectrum. It reports on a case study of the use of Apple iPod Touch mobile digital devices in a public elementary school in downtown Toronto, Canada. Drawing from Vygotskian sociocultural theory researchers examined the consequences of handheld touch technologies on the communication and sociality of children with communicative disorders, with a primary emphasis on nonverbal autistic children. In the period between January 2010 and June 2010, iPod Touch devices were introduced into six elementary classrooms. While there were gains in communication for all participants, ranging from mild to significant, nine of the 12 students for whom we collected detailed data demonstrated statistically significant improvement in communication skills. Observations are made about the heightened levels of motivation, increased attention spans, and increased social interaction that students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibited when using these devices. Future research should explore the connection of touch-sensory inputs on the communication development of children with ASDs.

Keywords:

• young people
• communication studies
• computer-mediated communication
• e-learning
• interactivity
• mobile technology

Notes on contributors

Rhonda McEwen is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Communication, Culture, and Information Technology, University of Toronto in Mississauga. She holds an MBA in Information Technology from City University in London, England, an MSc in Telecommunications from the University of Colorado, and a PhD in Information from University of Toronto. Dr. McEwen's research and teaching centre around information practices involving new media technologies, with an emphasis on mobile and tablet applications, social media design, and youth. She has designed and researched digital communications media for 15 years, both in companies providing services, and in management consulting to those companies. Dr. McEwen is currently researching the use of tablet devices by non-verbal autistic children for communication and sociality in two Toronto school settings. [email: [email protected]]

Notes

1. The iPod Touch device was available in Canada from 2006; however, the iPad was not launched in Canada until April 2010. Therefore the iPad was added to the study in Phase II.

2. Emergent communicators were those students who did not yet demonstrate any reliable means of symbolic communication, although he/she may have non-symbolic communication (Dowden, 1999). Emergent communicators could use gestures and facial expressions to indicate needs or wants.

3. According to Dr. Patricia Dowden (assistant clinical professor at the University of Washington), an emergent communicator does not have a reliable method of expressive communication through symbolic language and utilizes strategies such as gestures, body language, facial expressions, and familiar partners to figure out what is meant by these signals. http://depts.washington.edu/augcomm/03_cimodel/commind2a_emerging.htm.