Is my iPad disrupting my sleep?

This article explains how an iPad can disrupt a person's sleep.

Using an iPad or other backlit electronic tablet in the hours before bedtime not only prevents you from falling asleep, it may also affect your alertness the next day, according to a report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dec. 22, 2014. Researchers at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital found that the light emitted by the devices reset the body’s circadian clock, which synchronizes the daily rhythm of sleep to daylight. As a result, people reading e-books took longer to fall asleep and were less alert the next morning than when they read print books instead.

During the two-week study, 12 men and women read digital books on an iPad for four hours before bedtime each night for five consecutive nights. They also followed the same routine using printed books. When they read the iPad, participants were less sleepy before bedtime but were less alert the following morning, even after eight hours of sleep.

If you’re a bedtime reader who’s addicted to her iPad, don’t despair. The researchers used a 2010
iPad set at maximum brightness. Newer iPads and other e-readers have night-reading modes.

Read more here

iPad access could help children with autism speak

A study shows that iPad access may help speaking skills for children with autism.

Adding access to a computer tablet to traditional therapy may help children with autism talk and interact more, new research suggests.

The study compared language and social communication treatment -- with or without access to an iPad computer tablet -- in 61 young children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and found that the device helped boost the effect of the treatment.

"All the children improved, but they improved more if they had access to the iPad," said Connie Kasari, professor of human development and psychology and psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles' Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior.

The children used the iPad when they were engaged in play, she said. "It focused on helping them initiate conversation, using the iPad to comment on what they were doing. The iPad worked because it is a visual stimulant with auditory feedback," she explained. For instance, children would mispronounce a word, hear it pronounced correctly on the iPad, and then learn to say it correctly, she said.

But, Kasari emphasized, "The iPad is just a tool." It worked because it was used within a treatment aimed at helping improve the children's communication skills, she noted.

The study was published in the June issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. Autism Speaks, a research and advocacy organization, funded the study.

Autism spectrum disorders are a group of developmental disorders. Communication and social problems are hallmarks of ASDs. As many as one in 68 U.S. children has an autism spectrum disorder, according to estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Children in the study were between the ages of 5 and 8. All were considered "minimally verbal," which experts define as speaking fewer than 20 functional words, Kasari said. "The majority had far fewer." About 30 percent of children with an autism spectrum disorder are minimally verbal, she said, sometimes even after years of treatment.

For the first three months, all of the children received two sessions a week, totaling two to three hours a week. At the three-month mark, nearly 78 percent of children in the iPad-added group had an early response, but just 62 percent of those in the group without it did, the investigators found.

An early response was defined as an improvement of 25 percent or more in half of the 14 measures, such as the number of spoken words and the use of new words, Kasari said.

If a child was not progressing at the three-month mark, the researchers added the tablet. But adding it later was not as effective as using it from the start, Kasari's team found. The researchers followed the children for three years.

"The idea of using an iPad is a novel approach," said Dr. Ruth Milanaik, an attending physician at the Cohen Children's Medical Center in New Hyde Park, N.Y. Milanaik treats children with autism and reviewed the study's findings.

"The idea of technology being used to help children who really need different approaches is so important," she said. It's crucial, however, she agreed, to understand that the iPad "was simply a tool" and that it was an adjunct to the traditional interventions that aimed to improve communication and other developmental advances.

While a 25 percent improvement -- the measure used to define response -- may not seem like much to some, Milanaik said that "every small step, for the parents of an autistic child, is monumental."

Kasari and her team are continuing to study the iPad, planning to enroll about 200 children in four cities during a planned five-year study.

If the research continues to bear out, the hope would be to use the iPads in school programs and to train parents in its use at home, both experts agreed.

Read more here

iPod and iPad apps help children with autism communicate

A study shows that apps on the iPod and iPad tremendously help children with autism communicate.

Already embraced by millions for their portability and ease-of-use, new Canadian research suggests that smart technologies such as the iPad and iPod may also serve as therapeutic tools for a very specific group: children with autism.

Rhonda McEwen, an assistant professor with the Institute of Communication Culture and Information Technology at the University of Toronto Mississauga in Ontario, and her team found that such devices can go a considerable distance in terms of helping these kids significantly improve their ability to express themselves and engage with others.

"I was surprised by some of the findings, and so were the teachers who participated in the research," McEwen said. "Using the touch devices, the study participants demonstrated knowledge gathered throughout their education that could not be elicited via traditional assessment means that rely on verbal communication. We can surmise that the receptive communication skills are more advanced than first thought," she said.

"Further, the role that the devices play in brokering peer-to-peer social interaction was unanticipated," McEwen added. "Finally, the progress in expressive communication among study participants exceeded expectations."

McEwen and her team were scheduled to discuss their findings Friday at the American Psychological Association annual convention in Honolulu.

Autism experts hailed the effort to unlock this technology's potential.

"We have heard from many parents about how much their children enjoy mobile devices like the iPad, and how it is helping with learning and communication," noted Andy Shih, senior vice president of scientific affairs at Autism Speaks in New York City. "[So] we need more research in this rapidly developing field to understand how to maximize the benefits these devices can deliver to individuals and families living with autism."

McEwen and her colleagues set out to assess how off-the-shelf consumer technology might be harnessed to boost communication and social skills among children with autism.

In 2010, the Canadian team launched a case study in a downtown Toronto public elementary school.

Investigators initially studied 12 children in six specific classrooms, all of whom had been diagnosed as having autism spectrum disorder and most of whom were classified as "nonverbal."

Two hand-held touch technology devices currently sold by the computer manufacturer Apple were introduced into the classroom setting: the phone-sized iPod Touch and the tablet-sized iPad.

Costing roughly between $200 to $600 a piece, the mobile devices incorporate brightly illuminated screens that display a multitude of applications that range in price from free to less than $10 each. In turn, users can manipulate and respond to visual and audio content by means of simple finger gestures, such as touching or swiping.

Over a six-month trial, the students became accustomed to using the two devices.

The result: nine of the students showed a statistical improvement ranging from mild to significant in their overall communication skills. For example, when one boy took a visual identification quiz on an iPad, his teacher realized the child knew far more than the teacher had thought.

This meant that using the devices helped to boost motivation among 75 percent of the children, while also increasing their attention span and ability to interact socially. The researchers now have detailed data on 36 students.

But why and how?

According to Brenda Smith Myles, an autism consultant for the Ohio Center for Autism and Low Incidence in Columbus, Ohio, this kind of readily accessible technology works by "evening the playing field for individuals with autism."

"Many are nonverbal or low-verbal, and even those who are highly verbal often have a big degree of anxiety when interacting with someone," she noted. "They tend to like structure and predictability, and are largely visual learners. And these platforms and these apps address all three of those issues in a very nonstigmatizing and motivating way. They allow our folks to reach out in a way that is comfortable, so they can really communicate what they know," Myles explained.

"Of course, in addition, the technology is also cool, and automatically draws interest from other peers," said Myles, who was formally chief of programs for the Autism Society of America. "But certainly not all apps will work for all children, or will work in the same way. You do have to match the app to the learner, and each learner will be different. But generally speaking, these devices enhance skills and interest in communication. And they're easy to learn, easy to use and, best of all, low-cost."

The importance of the latter point is not lost on Dr. Jeffrey Brosco, associate director of the Mailman Center for Child Development at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

"Practically speaking, the older tech was extraordinarily expensive and cumbersome," he noted. "So this is a real advance, because you're not comparing the cost of an iPad and apps with books and other low-tech tools. You're really comparing these new devices with the old world of technology, in which machines that produce language cost thousands of dollars."

But what should parents make of this finding?

"Certainly, many families worry that if they rely too much on a communication device it will interfere with their autistic child's ability to talk," acknowledged Brosco. "But we find that it's actually a bridge to talking, because it gives these children a different mode with which to communicate. It helps them use language in a functional capacity, by giving them a way to get there faster and more efficiently. So, in general, I'd say this is a wonderful boon to families of autistic children."

The data and conclusions of research presented at meetings should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Read more here