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Do Tablets Help Children Learn?
hypnosec writes "With the wide array of electronic devices available in our everyday lives, it appears that children have formed an attachment to a different kind of toy. According to the latest survey, 77 per cent of polled US, UK parents believe that iPads and other tablets are good educational tools that boost kids' creativity. Meanwhile, researchers in this field explain that it is a matter of balance — and a child's access to tablets and other similar electronic devices should be monitored. Specialists warn that using tablets in excess could cause attention deficit disorder and even autism, particularly at a very young age."
Well then are better then text book in some ways and they can give tests / have interactive leaning.
You get a drop shadow inside the text fields when you click on them! Now THAT's innovative! Go Slashdot!
Do they help us learn? Well, it depends on the software.
Are they part of the Star Trek future-utopia? Hell yes.
Cell phones...tablets...we're well on our way to holodecks, and I'll be damned if we stop now.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
How does a device which drives and rewards specific behavior (tap the star to win!) increase creativity more than free-form finger paints and crayons?
Oh, that's right. It's a $600 toy they're trying to justify buying. Surely there must be something better they can spend the $6,000 on than 10 iPads.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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The real question is, is our children learning?
I hadn't heard Jenny McCarthy was blaming iPads now; I suppose it's an improvement from a public-health perspective.
Yes, and too much television will rot your brain, give you cancer, and ruin your eyes.
Tablets: They're new, they're (a little) different, they'll have lots of critics and fear mongers.
As for "causing ADD/Autism", I only see that happening if they're used as the ultimate babysitter (kinda like TV 30 years ago.) If a kid's whole day, every day, consists of 99% tablet interaction and 1% ducking criticism from parents and other adults, yeah, they're going to come out a little bent, at least compared to kids who didn't grow up that way.
Anybody still go to a school that forbids simple +-x/ calculators in advanced math and science courses? This, too, shall pass.
I love how "Specialists" have made autism into a learned disorder instead of a genetic one. Kinda like the anti-vaccine crowd was yelling as a possibility.
I wish people would stop making the assumption that there is only one way to learn something. It implies that there is one superior form of learning and a bunch of inferior ones. One problem of one-to-many teaching is that it must use a learning style which is effective to the broadest audience, which can (and usually does) mean that the learning style used is not the optimal one for some, if not most, of the audience. Another is that not all material is equal; You do not teach math the same way as you do phy ed; The goals are different, and in fact the areas of the brain targeted for development are different. Radically so.
So to ask a question "Do tablets help children learn?" is disengenuous at best. They will help in some situations. They will not help in all situations.
With that out of the way, I have some personal experience worth sharing. My sister is age 15 and has struggled with reading and math; Her verbal vocabulary vastly outstrips her written vocabulary. I purchased an iPad 2 for her this christmas (not cheap!) after several previous failed attempts to get her interested in reading. Since then, her reading comprehension has improved, and I believe access to a tablet device can be credited with that, because of it's interactive and hands-on nature. It is a more intuitive design for written material than a computer, and it is in a more accessible format. As well, because she can just swipe her finger over a word and get a definition and a spoken example of the word, it helps associate the written form of the word to the spoken one. I think tablets are very good for certain specific cases like this; and could be very beneficial for people with specific learning disorders.
But I do not suggest everyone buy a tablet for their child (or 'a' child, as the case may be!).
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
If there are environmental factors, they're slight. It's as heritable as height.
Plenty of things can cause the same symptoms in the short term without the neurological condition. Examples are the death of a parent (the emotional pain is, among other things, highly distracting), lack of sleep, and malnutrition. Yes, staring at a screen all day and experiencing nothing but rapid, small rewards can cause an otherwise healthy kid to find other things less rewarding. But I've read a lot about ADHD, and I've never seen anything conclusive that says such things can give a child the actual disorder.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
We monitor all of the "screen time" our kids get. Phones, computer, TV, DS and Leapsters can be played with or watched for a while (usually about one hour a day). We also don't allow screen time before lunch and make sure they also have physical activity, read books, play games (card, board, puzzles), Legos, ride bikes, go to the park, go outside (sledding, swingset, bubbles, hula hoop) and do organized lessons (dancing, swimming). We also take family vacations at a lake where we do swimming, fishing, canoeing, tubing, hiking and other outdoor stuff. Last year I think they went four days without TV. Sometimes they whine that they want to watch something else but once they get involved in something new they generally forget about it.
We'd never just park them with a tablet and let them "learn" that way. They still have a lot of real-world stuff to figure out before they can spend significant time in electronic land.
"Specialists warn that using tablets in excess could cause attention deficit disorder and even autism, particularly at a very young age.""
Specialist in what, making scary shit up about technology?
The tablet is a window to the world. Parents should control it, but that's about it. If it gets the child active in something, then it's good. The fact that it's a tablet is secondary.
I ma from the era where for entertainment kids through rocks at each other. i.e. every generation prior to 1995.
My kids are very much in the internet generation. And they can do and learn far more then I had the opportunity to.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If I were to say yes, would you stop asking?
Of course tablets can help you learn, that is a no brainer.
The real question is, Can we give them to children and monitor their use so they use it to learn, instead of just for entertainment.
Be seeing you...
No.
I personally work in education in a fairly large school district.. Whenever people discuss this topic, they tend to focus on the wrong things in my opinion. What we need to focus on: 1) Is this a matter of taking a technology that was developed for personal entertainment and trying to make it conform to "serious education". 2) If kids can't write/express succinctly on paper or read a book, what makes you think that some shiny $500 tablet will? 3) Total cost of the device, not just initial.. you look at your average tablet plus e-books, plus apps and you have a very expensive alternative to plain ole notebooks, pencils, and textbooks 4) Management.. Schools quickly learn that just giving these things away to students quickly amounts to a management nightmare they didn't foresee.. Everything from warranty repair, broken glass, application deployment/updates and acceptable content are only possible with a well thought out plan, and school-wide participation at all levels..
All kidding aside, what will determine if the the tablet will help kids learn is the same thing that helped determine if the laptop, or desktop, book, or pen helps kids learn. Are they properly trained in their use. Do they understand them as tools or simply entertainment. I mean why is a book and pen and paper so out of vogue? Because schools are not teaching kids how to read and write to learn. We teach them how to read and write, praise them when they say the phonics, promote them when they can read a chapter book and copy a few passages, but what about learning? Books and pen are used both for pleasure and learning, sometimes at the same time, yet the later has been deemphasized.
A tablet can present information to a wider group of learning styles, but there is no magic elixir that will make students learn. A student who is not properly taught that the tablet is a tool will just use it as a toy. Learning might go on if the information is presented as a toy, and there might even be a higher rate of retention for the unmotivated student, but that hardly means that superman carries a tablet into the classroom.
I would certainly say that a tablet may provide benefits over traditional textbooks, even for no other reason that it is easier to get background information. I would say that every kids needs a text processor, though a word processor leads to toy territory, and like the MS commercial shows, replaces ideas and grammer with pretty colors and fonts. Some tablet do not run flash or java well, so for some teaching applications are not suitable. But at the end of the day, the question is if a student is going to use a tablet as tool for learning or to play angry birds in space, which illustrates good physics for the elementary school student, but will hardly prepare a kid for the AP exam.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Ritalin tablets?
More generally - is there anything they aren't blaming autism on these days?
Too much television will "rot" your brain - there is no question about this. Studies have clearly show that, for example, children under 2 there is a steep correlation between hours of tv watched per week and vocabulary (tv watching decreases your small kids vocabulary).
My 7yo daughter is reading years ahead of her age - I'm sure this is down to a very small amount of television watching - and she does not miss tv at all. She would much rather play with her sister or read a book.
Tablets are not a magical answer to educations problems and shouldn't be treated as such, but they do present several valuable qualities that could make them a better learning method. First they're far more interactive and allow for more intermediate feedback, to the extent that a program can give a student instantaneous feedback as they work a math problem. It also makes it easy to present alternative learning methods. Some people find it helpful in learning if they're hearing something spoken to them rather than reading it. Others like visual examples and a tablet is capable of providing a more customized experience than a textbook. Even now tablets are still in their infancy and I can't even imagine the kinds of improvements we'll see over the next few decades. That said, they still won't motivate a student who doesn't care to learn, or fix other shortcomings in the education system.
I wish I had mod points.
let's go further. is autism an indicator of our evolution? is autism a natural progression of our minds mixing with technology before we merge with it a la kurzweil-style? the borg seem pretty autistic.
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
As I've pointed out in other threads, I work in a school where we're slashing budgets but somehow can afford to buy ipads for all the classrooms. Sadly, the ipad isnt well integrated into the curriculum, there isnt an IT strategy or plan nor people to do something if there were one. Waste of money.
Creativity? Sure. We had etch-a-sketches for that sort of thing, and play doh and finger paints. Seems they're just electronic versions of the same.
I'd love some actual research but I also feel electronics does cause kids to be less patient and require more stimula/instant gratification than "back in the day".
Agreed. That was the funniest non-sequitur I've read since I last cleaned spam off my blog. (Cheap viagra, cheap viagra, cheap viagra, cheap viagra.)
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
The company that did the survey, KidsIndustries, offers their marketing service "to ensure your brand is front of mind with your consumer". So quick, run out and buy several iPads; everybody knows they make your kid smarter.
I understand that this might cause ADD, but when will these idiots learn that autism begins in the womb? It's not from tablets, it's not from vaccines, it's genetic.
"That's either incredibly asinine or the most brilliant troll I've ever read. Not sure which." -Anonymous Coward
Yes. To our knowledge, sloppy journalism has yet to be linked with a rise in incidence of autistic spectrum disorders.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
With Easter coming up, wouldn't it be more appropriate to spam about Cheep Viagra for those flaccid marshmallows?
The enemies of Democracy are
No. That's totally loopy.
Whatever 'expert' suggested tablet usage could lead to autism should have their credentials revoked.
kids want to use them, and there are lots of games that make learning fun. Whenever a kid wants to do something and it is fun, they are a lot more likely to learn from it. It will only cause ADD in the sense that if a kid is sitting still using a tablet most of the day, they aren't going to want to sit still and listen to a teacher talk for the rest of the day; and maybe if they realize there are better ways to learn, they are going to see the absurdity of the way most schools do things.
We observe clear addictive behavior in adults who use the Internet to consume media. Being able to carry the Internet with you on your phone or tablet obviously exaggerates these effects. So you really should be asking yourself, does it make sense to not only expose, but force, children to use devices that clearly lead to addictive patterns of behavior when used by adults?
I own a tablet, and I find that I can no longer entertain myself effectively by reading a book. Instead of grabbing a book I impulsively reach for the tablet. Instead of sitting down for two hours to work on something in a concentrated way, I find myself becoming distracted regularly and goofing off with the tablet. My wife and I both exhibit these addictions and we will often sit on opposite sides of the house, isolated, browsing random shit online. Yes, a computer can do all these things but you don't sit at a computer 24/7 (well, most people don't). With a phone or tablet it's trivial to carry the addictive substance with you everywhere you go.
I allow my older son to use the tablet for about five minutes per day. And even that is perhaps too much. When it's time to stop, he gets combative and irritable. It reminds me a lot of how I used to behave when I couldn't smoke a cigarette. The only way you could not notice that this is a bad thing is if your head is up your ass.
No, we should not be exposing children to this any more than necessary, and we should definitely not REQUIRE it!
Attractive female robot companions that have imprinted on you and think you are awesome and want to be helpful ...is good.
Does any technology help children learn? The answer is always, it depends on how you use it.
More generally - is there anything they aren't blaming autism on these days?
I'm pretty sure no one's linked autism to Viagra.
#DeleteChrome
Even Teletubbies isn't safe. One time they tried to teach the concepts of 'big' and 'small' by moving closer to and further away from the screen. Ouch. And then there's the repressed-memory-trauma-inducing 'lion' and 'bear' segments.
Once I met someone who claimed to have never watched TV, but instead read novels extensively. I thought that was fascinating, like meeting an alien or a ferral human. As a test I asked her about Scooby Doo, and she had *no clue* what I was talking about. Bonus IQ points right there.
As reading recommendations she suggested 'Dune' by Frank Herbert, and 'The Bone People' by Keri Hulme.
I guess they really are dead, if they have to resort to spamming us with ads on slashdot.
The real question is: Do we have the expertise, training, software and infrastructure to use a tablet to enhance education? Using the tablet for entertainment occasionally isn't bad, monitoring for inappropriate behavior and metrics is part of a solid network infrastructure, and teachers need to know how to use the devices or it is a waste of resources. I've seen too much technology thrown over the wall and minimally used.
Well the recent sharp rise in autism diagnoses is curiously synced to the introduction of Viagra.
And Viagra had been linked to a rise in...
Never mind.
Tablets are okay for teens but my younger children prefer chewables.
You have to have infrastructure to support tablets for a roll out to be successful. 1:1 Laptop deployments on existing network infrastructure have shredded wireless networks in schools. TCO of tablets will be 4X initial capital expenses, assuming you can get more than 1-2 years out of them. Plus teachers have to know how to use them inside their lessons, and to be viable from a cost perspective, nearly every learning activity will have to use the device in some form.
I'll let the author speak for herself.
(I haven't read her book, as yet):
+ http://www.ted.com/speakers/sherry_turkle.html
(Her talk is under 19 min's in length.)
But sadly the problem is that is EXACTLY what often happens, they become fancy electronic babysitters. I have gone in houses where there isn't a single book, not a one, but they make sure the kid has an X360 or PS3 because that keeps little Billy out of their hair.
As for the tablet i don't see anything the tablet could do that a cheap netbook or desktop could do, except maybe cost more. in the end its not about the tech, its about actually stimulating the child's mind, really interacting with them instead of just handing them some more technocrap and sending them to their rooms.
I had mine build their own desktops, showing them along the way what each piece was and explaining how it worked, I loaded up modding tools to show them how code was translated into what they saw on the screen, etc and now while the oldest has many friends that are having to take remedial computer classes he gets extra points being a TA and helping show the others how to properly research on the net. its not the tech, its actually spending time with the kids that counts.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Why learn it if you can always look it up, that's what I see happening to my friends and I, we tend to look up things on our that we used to know, for some reason the information stored is fading.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
What is it where not only do you not have a Scooby, but you didn't have a Scooby that you didn't have a Scooby? How confusing!
Unbelievable that you are the only person even mentioning the word "eye". We just need to ensure that the screen doesn't damage the young eyes, even with huge number of hours per day of veiwing from proximity. And the audio produced must be controlled such that they cannot casue deafening the way some high power music systems & and headphones already can.
And I still beleive that there should be some courses, all the way till college, that keeps students in touch with manual compute. I personally feel it is a mental excercise that keeps the brain fresh. Really.
As for the tablet i don't see anything the tablet could do that a cheap netbook or desktop could do, except maybe cost more.
In the 8-10 year old range, I have found the iPad 1 to be more kid-resistant than an Asus netbook. I think, dollar for dollar, the iPad will outlast 2, perhaps 3 netbooks.
When I first got into teaching, I got in towards the late-end of a district's adoption into an all "leftist" exploratory K-12 math curriculum. I'm sure most of you are familiar with at least one series that falls into this category. We had "Math Investigations" in grades K-5, "CMP" 6-8, and Core-Plus 9-12. The core concept of this series was that teachers were not supposed to teach rote-learning of math facts. Calculators would supplant that "old-fashioned" method of learning. Kids grew up learning how to "explore" math, rather than memorize addition & multiplication tables, practice procedures repeatedly, and churn out page after page of "drill n' kill" problems.
I got these kids in high school. When we ended Core Plus and reverted back to a traditional textbook, they couldn't do 40% of what you would find in an Algebra I textbook, because they did not have these basic math facts. They couldn't divide, so they couldn't factor. They couldn't calculate powers, so they couldn't understand square roots. They could not see patterns in numbers, because they had never learned to calculate. When they let the calculator do all the calculations, their brain never stopped to watch the patterns that were emerging.
Now we want to give iPads to kindergartners. Has anyone stopped to think about what basic skill sets we'll be depriving these children of that we adults take for granted? The ones we take them for granted because we grew up w/o iPads to impede learning basic skills...skills like social interaction, self regulation, dialog and public speaking... Forgive me, it's been a while since I've studied child psychology, but there's a significant amount of neurological development that occurs in elementary school and continues on though middle and high school. Has anyone really stopped to examine and consider the long-term effects of significant exposure to this technology, especially at such young ages?
I may have grown up with a computer, as well as most slashdot readers out there. But it's mere empirical evidence to say, "Look at me, I turned out fine." (Besides, your concept of "fine" may include living in your parent's basement at the age of 35.) Are there any real studies (rather than some questionable poll) that have examined this subject?
Too much television will "rot" your brain - there is no question about this. Studies have clearly show that, for example, children under 2 there is a steep correlation between hours of tv watched per week and vocabulary (tv watching decreases your small kids vocabulary).
Horse Hockey! My 3 year old only started to talk when he became interested in Thomas The Tank Engine at age 2. All of a sudden he went from almost no vocabulary to knowing each engine's name by heart as well as a stack of related verbs and nouns. At 3 he's telling his mother what kind of whale (Orca) and he's learning some spanish courtesy of Dora the Explorer. My not yet 2 year old daughter's vocab is fantastic, though she's not up to putting more than 2 words together yet. She loves Dora too.
It all depends on the content the children see and how it's re-enforced. Saying TV is bad for kids is no different to saying books are bad. It's not the delivery mechanism anywhere near as much as the content.
to help them learn. Oh, you meant tablet computers, not a couple of No-Doz :)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Read these lyrics from 40 years ago.
While this is not exactly the same thing as the article is talking about, something else must be considered in the tablets' usefulness: The ability to help those with special needs.
There are several apps on the iPad that are helping our son (who has CP) get a head start on being able to use an augmentative communication device. Doctors and therapist feel he is not ready to have one yet due to the lack of his the control of his hands/arms. The cost of such a device is prohibitive for us to plunk down on our own but the iPad has been a godsend in that he is motivated by the varying images and sounds and it is working his hand/eye co-ordination in getting there.
The autism exaggeration (in reality a tablet is more likely to leverage an autistic child into a more interactive state, if done properly) to counter a straight up marketing plant by Kids Industries for Apple http://www.kidsindustries.com/clients/ , just look at that list if ugly clients, mega corporations focused on manipulating as much children's pocket money into the hands of the greediest adult sacks of shite.
Tablets provide a simpler interface than a smart book. Once the child is capable of reading and writing out goes the tablet and in comes the smartbook. Want the child to learn, than they must be producing content, tapping away at those keys, writing essays, creating art, drawing simple plans (when will we finally switch to alphabetic keyboards from bloody stupid qwerty, please stop lumbering the next generation with stupid stuck in the mud) thinking).
The stupidest possible mistake will be trying to turn children into content consumer locked into iTunes to feed Apple's greed. The purpose of computers is for children to create content not consume, computers give them the ability to creative like never before and creative active thinking is what your after. Not mindless drones sucking up content feeding their pocket money to worms in the Apple.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
My daughter is four years old. Her favorite iPad game at the moment is robot brothers. She plays it obsessively, though limited to 30 minutes or so per day. It is a puzzle solver game, and she's persistently stayed at it, solving level after level, for weeks. It is not just teaching her problem solving, but also the patience and focus necessary to doggedly pursue a goal. Seems like a good thing to me.
How are they able to get any value out of a computer that you can't compile on?
So can sticks and rocks and anything else.
Tablets in general(as a computing device) suck ass.
Godness gracious, the authors of this article just single-handedly solved one of the most urgent mysteries in modern medical science! And to think of it, we were blaming vaccines the whole time!
All of your complaints apply equally well to standard computers, so lets get rid of those. Also the printing press created far more problems than it solved--lets revert back to singing songs around a fire.
Autism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior.
So is it no wonder if you give a child a device that takes time away from social interaction, impedes communication and tell them to play this game on it where they do the same thing over and over...
tablets like Adderall, Ritalin, Concerta, and Strattera have been helping children learn for decades!
oh, you mean like...iPad. My bad!!!
--- b2b.mallaidh.org | www.mallaidh.org | www.kidsalive.org/article/kahlil-pfaff/
Textbooks transmit lice. Anyone who doesn't own a tablet will develop a meth addiction. The TCO of a pencil is $8400.
But sadly the problem is that is EXACTLY what often happens, they become fancy electronic babysitters. I have gone in houses where there isn't a single book, not a one, but they make sure the kid has an X360 or PS3 because that keeps little Billy out of their hair.
Yes, yes. It seems bad parents can use devices too. However, the OP wasn't about bad parenting--more about the usefulness and/or hazards of these new-fangled devices for learning.
As for the tablet i don't see anything the tablet could do that a cheap netbook or desktop could do, except maybe cost more. ...
Obviously, you haven't been paying attention. My first grader is using an app called "Teach Me First Grade". She sits on the couch with me and is still learning to read. She uses her finger to WRITE her answers on the tablet that is accurately interpreted. When she writes a letter or number wrong, the app gives her help on how to write it correctly. Strangely, this sort of thing wasn't as intuitive on my laptop. Compared to a tablet, a laptop is bluky, uncomfortable and requires a level of abstraction (hit key here, comes up there.. slide finger her, mouse moves there) that presents one more barrier to learning. Educationally, the software is excellent and is helping her with addition, subtraction, spelling and sight words -- in addition to honing her ability to print.
There are always those who feel that because something is new and/or different, it can't replace "how I did it, back in the day." I'm not suggesting that all new tech is automatically good but it isn't automatically bad, either. I've been in the educational software industry for over 30 years (TUTOR was my first language after HP BASIC) and have seen tech come and go -- mostly for good reason. The tablets? They're here to stay. What I see being developed really does fulfill much of what was promised so many years ago. They are truly the "flying cars" of education.. and they're here.
My 6 year old has been using a laptop and Facebook for almost two years. She uses it to create paintings, write to/videocall family and occasionally play farm town. She seems to have ADHD... but no worse then I do/did.
120 characters ought to be enough for anyone
We are talking about _computers_ here, one of the greatest tool to man. We barely had a glimpse of what they could do in education. However for that you need computers the child itself can program. Kids are smart, give them a decent environment and they will learn. Xerox did some research on that in the 1970s.
http://archive.org/details/AlanKeyD1987_2
However tablets in their current form are just simple playback devices. They are dumbed down in dumb ways, by removing essential features like programmability.
YO DAWG, i heard you don't like scooby, so I put some tv in your tv so you can watch while you watch.
Absolutley, it helps them to learn. I think the skills they learn are preperation for their future in an IT world. In the past few weeks that ive got my first ipad, my kids have learnt to email, sms, watched videos and with apps learnt other skills (like garage band they have learnt the basics of music composition). There are sub-skills learnt too, like with emails and sms, their reading has picked up too. Sure, this time needs to be monitored, so the ipad and computer remain in the loungeroom where I can keep an eye on what they do and tiem spent on them. It also is a different set of skills to things like outdoor sports.
GAH, I had *no clue* what it meant to not have a Scooby. Now look who's living in a bubble!
Wonders if that was done intentionally for comic effect.
Checks ...
Nope.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
.. on what kind of tablets..
Look at it this way, it wasn't that you were so fast, it was that the rest of humanity was soooo slooooowwww and booorriiiinggggg. Attemtping to adjust to their lack of speed can be quite annoying, slowly painfully drawn out instructions, desire to repeat the same boring task over and over again, bogged down in pointless detail and, demand constant attention even when you just peacefully want to daydream ;D.
At least with computers you can go at your own pace and so can your daughter. All she needs is an adjusted curricula to allow that and some behavioural training to learn how to adjust to the slowness of others.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Everyone seems to be missing the point - autism/aspergers is a neurophysical difference from the "typical" brain structure. It means that people with ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder) have a different brain structure than "normal" people - meaning they percieve the world differently, and even think diferently. Although brain structure and development are affected by environmental issues, the structure is largely genetically determined, i.e. some people have a predisposition for ASD. Obviously "too much" TV or YouTube or whatever can be an environmental pressure, but if the predisposition isn't there in there in the first place, I can't see how the drastic structural changes can come about without something like disease to cause it. I'm not a brain doctor, I'm a geek. I also hate TV (we don't even have one at home) and I do firmly believe that it rots your brain, but I love computers. I didn't have access to a TV until I was about 4, despite my dad being a TV engineer, and even when I did, there were only kid's programmes on for 1.5 hours a day, in the afternoon - we're talking early seventies era here. I've just (last week) been "informally" diagnosed with Aspergers, and from the research I've been doing, I'm fairly certain that my father and grand-mother on his side had it too. Two of my nephews were diagnosed with ASD's last year too. One of them is profoundly deaf and wasn't interested in TV until he had cochleal implants fitted 2 or 3 years ago. My 20 month old son is also showing some signs - lining toys up, sorting them, good with puzzles, extremely high IQ... I'm SO glad we don't have a TV, though, as I'm certain it makes things worse. I AM however, considering getting a tablet computer for him once he's physically able to use one without destroying it! My recent diagnosis has certainly put things in perspective, but in the end, it's shaped who I am. I'm not totally socially unaware or unreachable, but I'm just different (some say odd). Autism isn't a disability, it's a DIFFability.
I thought it was the primary cause.
Newspaper: "Apples cause autism, claims study!".
Person who once gave an apple to his kid: "OMG, my kid is autistic. Doctor, do something!"
Doctor: "Give him these pills, forever. That'll be 98 squllion dollars, please".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
read High Tech Heretic by Clifford Stolls (the Cuckoos Egg guy)
I don't see the argument for autism, though I can see how interacting only with an electronic device could leave someone less socially adept at dealing with others in the real world. However, the contribution of the internet to ADD-like behavior is a very valid point and this has actually been documented in several studies. If you take the time to read them, they make perfect sense and align with behavior your see from both children and adults every day. As one example (not necessarily the best, but the one that comes to mind--check out the book The Shallows - What the Internet is Doing to Our Brain). The title is a little inflamatory, but the core ideas are sound.
Considering my local Craigslist is filled with brand new $100 netbooks, and even new netbooks at the local Wally world is just $200...why would I care? I can get two or three easily for the cost of a single iPad! That don't count the docks, keyboards, and other crap most folks add to an iPad.
To me this smells more than a little bit like Cult of Mac evangelism, trying to get new converts to their religion. I have a lot of customers that bought pads including iPads, know what they are used for? Either really expensive digital picture frames or as a video player, that's it.
Not saying pads can't be useful, but its a seriously niche market and most of what pads are being used for can be covered by a decent smartphone or a netbook. The ONLY two places i have seen pads be the smarter choice over phones and netbooks is in warehousing and medical, in warehouses for inventory and medical for charting but those are two REALLY niche areas. But if anybody thinks a 7 year old is gonna baby that $500+ iPad boy you don't know 7 year olds, that thing will be trashed in 2 months if you are lucky.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
My experience with an iPad 2 with my 6 year old:
NEW: I do educational games for 20 minutes, i get to play games for 20 minutes.
1 WEEK LATER: I do education games for 10 minutes. I get to play games for 30 minutes.
1 month later: I play games.
It's my own fault that this has happened. But be honest, this thing is a fricking toy. It can't (or shoudln't) be used for business. And for education, it is not like a book where your only choice is the book.
PERIOD.
They're not blaming autism on the vaccines, because they'd get slapped with lawsuits for threatening pharmaceutical company profits, although that's probably what's causing the epidemic. I worked for a school district as a computer programmer, and I had to write a program to determine whether or not a child had the right mix of vaccines based on State of Michigan data. I was stunned that children had to receive so many vaccines at such a young age.
My iPad position is that I wouldn't have bought one, and I didn't - I won it in a drawing that I didn't even know I had entered.
Sooooo....~ two years (and $50ish in Apps) later, the iPad is going strong, looking like the day we got it, and the $350 Asus Netbook that the kids had about equal access to got just enough drops, hard lid closings, etc, that the hinge has come loose and the internal screen doesn't work anymore. The kids actually treated the netbook fairly well, doesn't take much to break those screws loose from their plastic mating holes. We've had similar results with other "affordable" gadgets like handheld DVD players, etc., and below a certain size - roughly a 7" screen, gadgets seem more prone to being exposed to water, at least by our kids.
The iPad was more "intuitive" for my kids - of course, they learned how to access the netbook in about 3 seconds flat, as opposed to 2 for the iPad, but for some kids it might make a difference.
100% of sloppy journalists agree that this has never happened and could never happen.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
a straight up marketing plant by Kids Industries for Apple http://www.kidsindustries.com/clients/ , just look at that list if ugly clients, mega corporations focused on manipulating as much children's pocket money into the hands of the greediest adult sacks of shite.
I might have gone blind through too much masturbating or not eating enough carrots, but I can't see Apple on that list of clients you're pointing to.
On the other hand I do see the BBC, which isn't usually categorised as an evil corporation.
I've seen this with my Daughter who is a toddler. She will often ask to play with my Wife's iPod Touch. She'll play games, watch pre-screened video, draw and create stuff and generally use it rather intuitively. All of that works because she just has to touch the graphical interface. But she isn't obssesed with it luckily. She pretty much only asks for it when she's bored and going outside to play isn't an option. Playing outside is pretty much her all time favorite thing to do.
I'm sure your 7 year old is wonderful in many ways. But note that an anecdote is not data. Especially when it comes from a parent.
TV doesn't "rot the brain" or mean reduced vocabulary. Though lack of conversation with adults will do. And of course there's probably an inverse correlation of TV hours and conversation hours...
But a parent watching children's TV with a child, and joining in with the games, and talking about it. That seems like something that would be good for vocabulary. They'll see things on TV that they don't ordinarily see in real life and talk about them. And that improves vocabulary.
HAHA that makes it even funnier :) I really thought you knew cos you emphasized *no clue* lol.
Thank you, you made me proper chuckle :)
As for the tablet i don't see anything the tablet could do that a cheap netbook or desktop could do
There's a thousand and one things.
To take a random example: Sketching. There's an app called "Draw Something", where you partner up with a friend, and play a game something like Pictionary. You're given a random word, then you have to sketch the word without using words, such that your partner can guess it. It's turn based, so you and your partner don't have to be available and wanting to play at the same time. And you can match up with as many or as few partners as you want.
It encourages both children and adults to sketch more than they otherwise would. Improves sketching skills. Expands the brain. Builds vocabulary for the kids.
It won't work with a mouse or a trackpad. And would be clunky with a digitizer pad. It needs a touchscreen.
That's just one example of what tablets can do that PCs can't.
Considering my local Craigslist is filled with brand new $100 netbooks, and even new netbooks at the local Wally world is just $200...why would I care? I can get two or three easily for the cost of a single iPad!
You wouldn't care, because you have no experience of what tablets can do for you, and the amazing range of cheap or free apps.
To me this smells more than a little bit like Cult of Mac evangelism
And you've pretty clearly declared there that your position is based on a dislike of Apple.
Stop it. Stop it right now. People like you make it imfuckingpossible for me to raise a healthy, well-balanced, NOT FULL OF FEAR, child.
Have you forgotten the use of vaccines? You do realize that there is a specific, and concrete reason that 1st world countries aren't riddled with disease, right? It's called science. It's called preventative medicine.
Kill yourself and any children you have, to purge the gene pool
After watching my daughter with an iPad, I'm astonished at how much she is learning at only three years old. In addition to iPads, television has really helped her to learn. There is so much out there for toddlers now. When I was her age, we only had Sesame Street an Mr Rogers. Does she watch TV and play iPad all day? Of course not! She plays outdoors, dances, sings, plays puzzles, and "reads" books. Did I do that at three? I don't think so. I wish we would see more studies like "tablets boost IQ by 10%" or something like that. Why is it just so negative? Maybe we're frightened that our kids will be that much smarter than we are?
Not sure if serious - Or sarcastic statistic.
None of us know everything. Therefore we're all naïve.
Specialists are divided. Some experts believe that Internet statistics aren't as reliable as they seem; others insist that all information on the Internet remains completely factual, owing to the serious nature of the business.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Bravo!
You have to let kids limit themselves and learn for themselves, otherwise denying them will just lead to indulgence later on when nobody is there to tell them "no."
As for the tablet i don't see anything the tablet could do that a cheap netbook or desktop could do, except maybe cost more.
Hey! My tablet cost $155 which was about half of my netbook, you insensitive clod!
(It's a brand new Eken A90 full of magic and pixiedust)
I have two kids that are beyond College age now. Being in the tech industry for the past 30 years I had access to the latest stuff as it came out. Including software. What I didn't get for free (yes, even back in the early 1980s) I bought. I was shocked one day when I opened a file cabinet to clean it out. I must have had a few hundred CDs of all kinds of kid teaching programs.
Ok, Stop reading here if you take blue pills. I'm about to tell you the truth or a red pill.
No, seriously, stop reading unless you think you can handle the truth.
Did they help? NOT AT ALL! "A Palm Pilot will help me keep appointments, notes"... and so on. No, it didn't! Don't buy their crap because kids are often very good manure salesmen. My Son must have sold me a few wagons full. What worked? Good old fashioned learning. Not the crap they alude to in a school. Get the fucking book out, READ IT, do the PROBLEMS! Come back the next day and see if you can still do those problems. That is how your brain works. Doing problems. The harder the subject, the more problems you need to do. I know, sucks. I thought so too. I didn't really understand how to study until I was nearly out of school.
I can also tell you from taking technical courses over the net that you don't retain it. I've taken Cisco courses and so on over the net. 6 months later I might as well take the course again because I'm not going to remember to type in "enable" and all of those other little details. If I had the book like a RedHat manual for example, it's a piece of cake. Comes right back.
The ONLY way I could see it being useful is if it kept track of stuff. For example a math program that would teach, then quiz. Keep track of what they got wrong and allow them to either take the tests again or just the ones they missed. They should also be able to reset to the beginning. Also be able to go back to the lecture/teacher part. Here's how to do it:....bla bla bla. What part didn't they get? Over again.
BTW, my guess is you don't really care. You just want a justification to get your kid a tablet but don't like to shell out yet another $400+. Save your money, get a book instead and work with the kid every day if you really are interested in them learning. Yea, that's the parent part of the deal. You are also not their friend. Make sure you are a parent. They will appreciate it later.
The iPad was more "intuitive" for my kids - of course, they learned how to access the netbook in about 3 seconds flat, as opposed to 2 for the iPad, but for some kids it might make a difference.
Okay there are flaws in this analogy but if I offer you a choice of 10 pizzas and someone else offers you a choice of 2 pizzas. Which one will take you less time to decide? Does that make it more intuitive?
My wife leaves the peeps out overnight so they harden. No flaccid marshmallows at our household.