An iPod Can Help Calm Your Child

You may have heard of iPods as being trendy music machines, palm-sized jukeboxes filled with downloaded goodies that are coveted by teens and tuned-in adults. But the handy little gadgets can also be great tools for keeping your special-needs child calm in stressful situations or distracted in boring ones. The bottom-of-the-line iPod, the $79 iPod Shuffle, is a particularly good choice; about the size of a couple of postage stamps and as light as a key, the shuffle can clip to your child's collar or pocket and put music in his or her ears through two small earphones. There are only a few simple buttons, no windows or commands to figure out, and the songs can play straight through in order or in a random pattern. Download contemporary hits or children's tunes from the iTunes Store for 99 cents each, or upload songs from your own CDs. The iTunes Store also offers children's audiobooks, if your little one prefers words to music. The earphones, if your child can tolerate them, create a particularly enveloping sensory soundscape that shuts out distractions and makes listening a full-body experience; but if the earpieces are a sensory discomfort, ordinary headphones can be plugged in instead. In addition to whatever behavior management advantages the iPod itself may provide, iTunes songs also make good bribes, rewards and incentives, at not much cost.