By Amy Price
Librarian, Oakstone Academy
Autism affects 1 in 88 children. As the librarian at Oakstone Academy, that is not just a statistic to me because autism affects over half of the 600 students that I serve in my school libraries. With that percentage of my patrons on the autism spectrum, I don’t just desire to find out what works, I need to find out what works and how librarians can help this population overcome their barriers to information acquisition and learning.
Thanks to LSTA grant funding, the State Library of Ohio, and the support of the Oakstone Academy students and staff, we have been able to demonstrate the effectiveness of interactive eBooks on iPads with this population. As more librarians start to embrace this ever-growing population, we’re keen to spread the word. So what have we learned so far?
- With a little extra effort, you can successfully reach your patrons with autism and their families through Digital Sensory Storytimes. I helped to put together a four-part video tutorial teaches how and why to develop a Digital Sensory Storytime so that you can include children with autism in your library programming. This technique meets the needs of children with sensory processing issues, like those of children with autism, and is also interesting and attractive to typically developing children. An accompanying resource guide offers tools, support, and background information about library services to children and teens with autism spectrum disorders and their families. See this addition to the Ohio Ready to Read website.
- The iPad is an effective tool for lay people to communicate with individuals with autism. Also, large groups of iPads can be administered effectively using Apple Configurator.
- Patrons with autism have 21-25% greater comprehension when using an interactive eBook with text, audio and full color illustrations than they do when using a traditional print book.
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