Palm Beach School for Autism Implements Apple iPads in Curriculum

Using funds received from a TD Charitable Foundation grant, The Palm Beach School for Autism purchased 15 Apple iPads to be implemented in both the general curriculum and with the speech and language therapists. Studies have shown that the use of Apple iPads can extend short attention spans, demonstrate understanding, and improve communication skills. Applications like Proloquo2Go provide a full-featured communication solution for people who have difficulty speaking. It brings natural sounding text-to-speech voices, up-to-date symbol, powerful automatic conjugations, default vocabulary of over 7,000 items, full expandability and extreme ease of use to the iPad.

"The Apple iPad fosters improvement across a wide area of skills such as visual and auditory memory, independent functioning, social/emotional, receptive/expressive language, pragmatic/social language and cognitive skills,” said Paula Perretz, speech and language pathologist. “Children with autism have different styles of learning, and the iPad addresses both auditory and visual learning styles. The iPad has apps which help increase desire and motivation to learn, attention to task, short and long term memory, and enables the interaction and development of communication as it is truly a revolutionary high tech dynamic display AAC device.”

The Palm Beach School for Autism, a charter school located in Lantana, Florida provides a developmentally appropriate intense behavior intervention program for children with autism and related disabilities. It addresses the learning needs of its students through individual educational plans, a highly trained teaching staff and choice of curricula to suit the individual needs of the student.

For more information about The Palm Beach School for Autism, please contact Josh Hirsch at (561) 533-9917 or via e-mail at JoshH@pbsfa.org. You can also find us on the Web at www.pbsfa.org
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About The Palm Beach School for Autism:
The mission of The Palm Beach School for Autism is to provide a developmentally appropriate education using intensive behavioral strategies for students with autism spectrum disorder and related disabilities..

The vision and purpose of The Palm Beach School for Autism is to demonstrate that all age students with autism spectrum disorder can learn to lead successful & fulfilling lives through a structured educational program using strategies tailored to each student’s needs.

We address the learning needs of the students that we serve through individual educational plans, a highly trained teaching staff and the choice of curricula to suit the individual needs of the student. Each student’s program will be designed with their unique behavioral traits in mind to overcome their cognitive weaknesses and emphasize their strengths. Behavioral modification is critical to reach academic success for the child with autism spectrum disorder.