Laptop or Ipad for Dyslexic secondary school child?

[zazas]

My 11 DS is Dyslexic (although what has been referred to as a stealth sort - slipped through the net until now due to his ability to compensate!) but it is very obvious now when faced with the Year 7 and his secondary school has acknowledged that the use of IT in classes will be of great benefit to him.

So what to get - a laptop or iPad? I was leaning towards a laptop after doing some research but the SENCO teacher feels an iPad will be a better solution - smaller, less needing of a power plug (which will influence where he sits in class), easy to use for basic note taking and great at recording information either in lists or page maker.

Does anyone have any suggestions which will work best? Thanks.

[WhatKindofFool]

I find it much harder to type on an ipad but I can see the advantages in terms of power etc, making lists and, lets face it, it has some good apps which could be handy.

[Niceweather]

There is also something called an Alphasmart. My son has a laptop and hasn't had any problems with power - he can easily plug it in and it has a long battery life. The main problem has been the heavy weight of it and lately a bit of peer mocking because it is an old frumpy one. Perhaps a lightweight Notebook type would have been better but then he wouldn't have been able to play Minecraft on it. Our SENCO recommended a laptop rather than a notebook but there was no mention of an iPad.

[WhatKindofFool]

You defo can't touch type on an iPad. Personally, I'd go for a small laptop.

[sometimessunshine]

You can get keyboards that connect to the iPad so that you are able to touch type on them.

[WhatKindofFool]

That is true!

[goingmadinthecountry]

My ds is hugely dyslexic and in y11 at grammar school. Don't spend too much money now - he won't use a laptop or IPad at school. Doesn't like to be different and thinks more clearly with pen and paper. See if you can borrow one from AEN first to see if it's any use. He found it particularly difficult in maths and science (his strongest subjects).

He can touch type and uses his laptop loads at home (we've even tried Dragon voice recognition software) but does the same as the others at school. Can't be too bad - he's predicted a fair few A* at GCSE. Far more important is to make sure your dc has a reader/extra time allowed.

[Startail]

Lap top. Way easier to type on, formate stuff and full vertions of word are way better spell checkers than autocorrect. They give a lot more alternatives. If you spell like me and DD1 you need them.

DD1 uses dragon sometimes at home, but it's not brilliantly trained.
Tends to be a massive proofing job for DH.

It's also worth telling DS the best fuzzy spell checker of all is google.
Perhaps, because of English not necessarily being searchers first language, google understands the most outrageous dyslexic spellings that totally flummox my kindle fire, iPhone or Word.

[Startail]

Format (see autocorrect doesn't do a very good job with my wonky spelling)