Creative iPad use opens ancient tradition to autistic boy

0 comment(s) so far...

March 29, 2012 By:

Mar 29

Written by:
3/29/2012 3:15 AM 

A Massachusetts teacher developed a way to use the iPad to allow a severely autistic boy to have his bar mitzvah. Matthew Emmi cannot read, write or speak in sentences, but he was able to participate in his traditional ceremony by touching icons on the iPad, triggering recordings of Matthew's voice calling family members to the Torah or the appropriate recitations of scripture, spoken by Cantor Idan Irelander.

Matthew's teacher, Jamie Hoover, is also the executive director of the May Center for Child Development School. Read Boston globe reporter Steven A. Rosenberg's full story here.