From tablet computers in primary and secondary schools to online e-learning at universities, technology is no stranger to students in Singapore.
For intellectually-disabled students, technology has the potential to play an even bigger role, by helping them to overcome learning challenges and develop useful life skills.
At the Movement for the Intellectually Disabled of Singapore (Minds), a voluntary welfare organisation that provides educational and training services for the intellectually disabled, students have been using Dell tablets loaded with learning apps to pick up motor skills such as hand-eye coordination.
“The tablets have been useful in developing the cognitive abilities of the students,” said Minds’ chief executive officer Keh Eng Song, adding that 12 students at Minds’ Training and Development Centres (TDCs) are using a variety of apps on the tablets to learn how to draw or play music.
The TDCs currently serve some 200 clients who are undergoing training in pre-vocational and social skills. The clients may eventually be transferred to Minds’ Employment Development Centres to pick up vocational skills.
The use of tablets have also been extended to Minds’ special education schools, where students have learned to open up to others through the use of mobile apps, some of which were developed through a collaboration with Republic Polytechnic, Keh said.
“There was a girl who refused to talk, but when we let her use the apps, she enjoyed using them so much that she started talking,” Keh said, adding that there’s great potential in the use of tablets and apps to develop life skills.
Moving forward, Keh said Minds is looking into developing picture-to-speech apps that would help its clients overcome communication barriers in life situations such as ordering food at fast food restaurants.
The tablets, along with laptops, servers and security software, were sponsored by Dell under the Dell Youth Learning programme.
About 20 to 30 Singapore-based Dell employees have also been interacting with Minds’ clients through monthly volunteer activities such as cycling and bowling, said Ng Tian Beng, vice president, Dell South Asia and Korea, and vice president, commercial channels, Dell Asia Pacific Japan.
