Did you know that your old iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad can give a child with Autism or developmental speech delay a way to communicate exactly what they want? Here's the history of this campaign as explained by the founder, Lisa Domican: Many kids with autism or speech delay use pictures attached to a board to ask for what they need or say how they feel. These boards are stored in a book which the user carries around with them. Even when they begin to speak, they may be difficult to understand, so they rely on a growing picture vocabulary which can become very unwieldy. Lisa says: As a mother of a little girl with autism with few words but a lot of pictures, I wanted to keep encouraging her speech development, but I wanted to be sure we always had the pictures we needed, wherever we went.

A couple of years ago, iPhones 4 Autism gave Kathleen's son Cahir an old iPhone that someone had donated.

Here's what Kathleen had to say:

'You may wonder what use is an iPhone to a child with special needs?

One that is only 5 years old, who doesn’t speak and relies on other people for all of his daily tasks, from washing to dressing to choosing what to eat and when to eat it. Well that was my son Cahir last January.

In September 2013 I was invited to give a TED talk at TEDx Dublin.

The theme was "small shifts, big change" and I spoke about my personal story, of wanting to be able to understand both my children who have autism and a speech disability.

With the support of a lot of other people I created an App that has been part of a big change in independent communication.

That journey started with the gift of an iPhone from O2 Telefonica.

The year 2012 was very good to us and lots of people helped our campaign in many ways, either by donating devices, covers, lanyards or simply their time. If you retweeted or shared even one of our posts then we are very grateful.

Every little effort, by many people, has combined to help give the gift of communication to some children with Autism (and Special Needs) so, thank you.

We were delighted this week to receive the opportunity to have our campaign highlighted on the Mooney radio Show last Thursday.

Brenda Donohoe went all the way to Co Laois to interview Genevieve Fagan, one of our parents who has received a donated iPhone.
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