The impact of teachers' iPad use on supporting functional abilities in children with special needs.
Equip and coach teachers with iPads and kids with mixed disabilities gain language, thinking, and daily-life skills in one school year.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Eden et al. (2025) gave teachers iPads and six months of coaching. They tracked how kids with mixed disabilities progressed in language, thinking, emotions, and daily life skills.
The team used a quasi-experimental design. One group kept usual lessons. The other group got lessons plus teacher iPad use.
What they found
Kids in the iPad group gained more skills across every area tested. Language, cognition, emotion, life skills, and overall functioning all moved up.
The gains showed up within one school year. No extra staff were added—just the teacher and the tablet.
How this fits with other research
Didden et al. (2009) saw students with epilepsy lose focus across the day. Sigal’s study shows teacher tech can push skills up, not just stop loss.
Syriopoulou-Delli et al. (2012) found trained teachers feel more effective. Sigal adds that when you also give them an iPad, student skills rise, not just teacher confidence.
Paff et al. (2019) built a tool to watch teacher practice. Sigal used a simple pre-post check and still caught real gains, showing you don’t need fancy scoring to see change.
Why it matters
You can copy this tomorrow. Hand a teacher an iPad, show three useful apps, and set one skill target per student. Check again in six weeks. If you see even half the gains Sigal found, the device pays for itself.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The integration of technology in education has progressed significantly, with iPads becoming a popular tool, particularly in classrooms for children with special needs. This study explores the impact of teachers' pedagogical iPad use on the functional abilities of children with mild-to-severe special needs, focusing on language, cognition, motor, emotional development, and life skills, as well as overall functioning. The study included 1137 participants: 139 teachers (M age = 41.77, SD = 9.78) and 998 children (M age = 9.28, SD = 4.46) with mild-to-severe disabilities. Participants were divided into two groups: (1) an experimental group where teachers used iPads in class (57 teachers; 465 children), and (2) a control group without iPads use (82 teachers; 533 children). Teachers completed six questionnaires at the beginning of the school year, before the experimental group received iPads (T1), and again after an iPad training course and six months of use (T2). Results showed that functional abilities improved significantly across all areas at T2, with greater gains in the experimental group, particularly in language, cognition, emotional, life skills, and general functioning. Multilevel modeling analyses indicated that the time-by-group interactions remained robust even after controlling for teachers' and children's background characteristics. Specific background factors-teachers' years of experience, teachers' iPad use, children's gender, and disability level-also contributed to variations in children's functional levels. The study highlights digital tools' role in bridging educational gaps and fostering equal opportunities for children with special needs.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2025 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2025.105028