iPads help patients at The Children's Center find their voices

That is the way she says, “Yes.”

Her language consisted primarily of those subtle movements until just a few months ago.

The 3-year-old's mind is agile but she's trapped in a nearly motionless body, her words seemingly forever lost in an unforgiving tangle of ventilator and tracheotomy tubes made necessary by a disorder called spinal muscular atrophy.

But now technology is helping Abbagale find her voice.

Abbagale is a patient living at The Children's Center in Bethany, where teachers recently began incorporating iPads into patients' therapy to enhance learning and communication.

The disorder causes progressive muscular weakness that prevents movements such as grasping. So slings hang from the top of Abbagale's hot pink wheelchair, supporting her elbows and wrists so her hands can move enough to use an iPad.

“She doesn't have the strength to use a computer keyboard or to grasp a crayon,” said special education teacher Mindy Cash.

Scribbling helps children learn to communicate, she explained. But that early step is often lost to children like Abbagale who can't hold a crayon or tap a keyboard.

Yet with her wrists in slings, Abbagale can draw or “turn” the pages of an alphabet book by lightly sliding a fingertip across the iPad screen.

Her teacher asked if she wanted to draw. The child turned those big eyes upward, meaning yes.

Smiling almost imperceptibly as the app for drawing sprang to life, Abbagale moves her right hand so two fingers could softly draw a jagged oval and some lines across the sensitivity-adjusted iPad screen lying on her wheelchair table.

After a few moments, Cash noticed a meaningful glance from Abbagale.

“So you want to choose a color to draw with,” she said.

Cash pointed to dots of various colors on the screen of a communication device called a MyTobii P10, situated about a foot above the child.

Abbagale gazed at a pink circle on the screen and her scribbles on the iPad turned pink. Seconds later, she chose a new color to draw with by gazing at a purple circle.

“I like that big smile,” Cash told Abbagale.

“This is allowing her to be independent ... to give her communication,” she said. “It's so engaging. It just captivates them.”

Bethany Public Schools initially loaned five iPads to the center for use in classrooms like the one Abbagale daily shares with Fletcher Burns, 7, and Azon Meyers, 3. In the past few weeks, the nonprofit hospital was able to buy 15 iPads through a grant.