Social Skills?: There?s an app for that

No, really, there is. The iPad app store features about a dozen applications designed to help children on the autism spectrum develop everyday social skills such as recognizing facial expressions, reading body language, and initiating conversations. Because these applications are relatively new, there's more hype than evidence regarding their effectiveness, but parents and autism researchers are understandably hopeful that this new technology will enable these kids to navigate more easily through our socially demanding world. But, like a drug that has the opposite effect when ingested by the wrong person, addictive reliance on technology is causing a debilitating decline in social skills in the vast majority of our younger population.