New research, funded by Autism Speaks, indicates that children with autism who are minimally verbal can learn to speak later than previously thought, and iPads are playing an increasing role in making that happen.

A researcher at Vanderbilt Peabody College of Education and Human Development has demonstrated that using speech-generating devices to encourage children aged between 5 and 8 to develop talking skills resulted in considerably more spoken words compared to some other interventions. Every child in the study learned some new spoken words and several children learned to produce short sentences as they moved through the training.

Initial results from the research were available in Spring 2014 and the NIH study will continue into Spring 2017. More information is available at Kidtalk.org.