Transcripts For CNBC 60 Minutes On CNBC 20140804

Lose . Theres nothing. [ticking] its so much more intimate than a laptop. When steve jobs unveiled the ipad, there was no way he could have predicted what it would mean to people with autism. It turns out it may be the perfect device to help unlock the isolation many with autism feel by helping them communicate in ways that they couldnt before. I want a drink. I always had said when he was younger, it was like he was a computer and i was computer illiterate, and i didnt know how to press the right keys. Sorry. That was the hard part is, you knew there was more in there, and you didnt know how to get it out. Welcome to 60 minutes on cnbc. Im bob simon. In this edition, we look at the life of tech titan steve jobs, the cofounder of apple, and we also examine the unexpected impact that one of his inventions, the ipad, is having on children and parents living with autism. In 2004, jobs asked Walter Isaacson, a former editor of time magazine, if he would write his biography. Isaacson thought the request premature since jobs was still a young man. What he didnt know at the time, and only a few people did, was that jobs was about to undergo surgery for pancreatic cancer and was feeling his mortality. In 2009, with jobs already gravely ill, isaacson began the first of more than 40 interviews with him, the last being conducted a few weeks before his death. As steve kroft first reported in october 2011, the result was the bestselling book of the year. When Walter Isaacson first began working on the book which is published by simon schuster, a division of cbssteve jobs wife, Laurene Powell, told him, be honest with his failings as well as his strengths. There are parts of his life and his personality that are extremely messy; you shouldnt whitewash it. Id like to see that its all told truthfully. Hes not warm and fuzzy, you know . And to do it, isaacson interviewed more than 100 peoplejobs friends, family, coworkers, and competitor. I think its a tough book. Its a book thats fair. I mean, this is a real human being. He had lots of flaws. He was very petulant. He was very brittle. He could be very, very mean to people at times, and whether it was to a waitress in a restaurant or to a guy who had stayed up all night coding, he could just really just go at them and say, youre doing this all wrong; its horrible. And youd say, why did you do that . Why werent you nicer . And hed say, i really want to be with people who demand perfection, and this is who i am. Isaacson believes that much of it can be traced to the earliest years of his life and to the fact that jobs was born out of wedlock, given up by his birth parents, and adopted by a workingclass couple from mountain view, california. Paul jobs was a salt of the earth guy who was a great mechanic, and he taught his son steve how to make great things. And heonce, they were building a fence, and he said, you got to make the back of the fence, that nobody will see, just as goodlooking as the front of the fence. Even though nobody will see it, you will know, and that will show that youre dedicated to making something perfect. Jobs always knew he was adopted, but it still had a profound effect on him. He told isaacson this story from his Early Childhood during one of their many taped interviews. Now, i wasremember, right here on the lawntelling lisa mcmoylar, who lived across the street, that i was adopted. And she said, so does that mean your real parents didnt want you . Ooh, lightning bolts in my head. I remember running into the house. I think i was probably crying, asking my parents, and they sat me down, and they said, no, you dont understand. They said, we specifically picked you out. He said, from then on, i realized that i was not just abandoned; i was chosen. I was special. And i think thats the key to understanding steve jobs. Another factor was geography. Jobs grew up in Northern California not far from palo alto. He was a gifted child who tested off the charts in a neighborhood populated by engineers. You know, he was raised in a place that was just learning how to turn silicon into gold. It had not yet been named Silicon Valley, but you had the defense industry; you had hewlettpackard, but you also had the counterculture of the bay area. That entire brew came together in steve jobs. He was sort of a hippieish rebel kid, loved listening to dylan music, dropped acid, but also he loved electronics. Jobs would eventually cross paths with a computer wizard at berkeley five years his senior named steve wozniak. They became fast friends, sharing a love of hightech pranks and a disdain for authority. One of the things they did was to copy and improve an illicit device called a blue box, which reproduced the tones that the phone company used and allowed users to make free longdistance phone calls. Wozniak loves the blue box. Hes doing it as a prank. Steve says, we can sell them. We can market them. And they sold about 100 of em. And jobs said to me, thats the beginning of apple. When we started doing that blue box, i knew that with wozniaks brilliant designs and my marketing skills, we could sell anything. That was still a few years off. Jobs enrolled at reed college in oregon at a time when Timothy Leary was telling students across the country to turn on, tune in, and drop out. Jobs did after one semester. The time we grew up in was a magical time. It was also a very, you know, spiritual time in my life. Definitely taking l. S. D. Is one of the more important things in my life andnot the most important but right up there. He eventually drifted back to his parents house and became one of the first 50 employees to work for the video game maker atari. But he was not a big hit with his coworkers. Never wore shoes, had very long hair, never bathed. In fact, when he went to work for atari, they put him on the night shifts because people said he smelled so bad that they didnt want to work with him. You know, he believed that his vegan diet and the way he lived made it so he didnt have to use deodorant or shower that often. It was an incorrect theory, as people kept pointing out to him at atari. Jobs took a leave from atari and spent seven months wandering across india looking for spiritual enlightenment, and it turned out not to be a waste of time. And when he comes back, he says, the main thing ive learned is intuition, that the people in india are not just pure rational thinkers, that the great spiritual ones also have an intuition. Likewise, the simplicity of zen buddhism really informed his design sense. That notion that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. [ticking] coming up, steve jobs launches apple, changing the world and his life. I was, like, 25, when, you know, we were worth maybe 50 million. I knew i never had to worry about money again. Thats ahead, when 60 minutes on cnbc returns. That its given me time toabout reflect on some of lifeseen biggest questions. Like, if you could save hundreds on Car Insurance by making one simple call, why wouldnt you make that call . See, the only thing i can think of is that you cant get any. Bars. Ah, thats better. Its a beautiful view. I wonder if i can see mt. Rushmore from here. Geico. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on Car Insurance. [ticking] the 20yearold steve jobs returned to Northern California after trekking through india for several months in 1974. With his friend steve wozniak, he started building and peddling a primitive computer for hobbyists. In 1976, with a 1,300 investment, they founded Apple Computer in his parents garage. Explain to me how somebody who was a hippie, a college dropout, somebody who drops l. S. D. And marijuana goes off to india and comes back deciding he wants to be a businessman. Jobs has within him sort of this conflict, but he doesnt quite see it as a conflict, between being hippieish and antimaterialistic but wanting to sell things like wozniaks board, wanting to create a business. And i think thats exactly what Silicon Valley was all about in those days lets do a startup in our parents garage and try to create a business. So we dont have to work for somebody else. Right. He was never much of an engineer. Isaacson said he didnt know how to write code or program a computerthat was wozniaks departmentbut jobs understood their importance and their future. He was obsessed with making an attractive, simple, inexpensive computer the apple ii, marketed as the first home computer. It really didnt do much, but techsavvy people snapped them up along with school systems. And as he tells isaacson on tape, he was soon worth millions of dollars. It wasnt very many years before, on paper, we were worth a lot of money. And i was, like, 25, when, you know, we were worth maybe 50 million. I knew i never had to worry about money again. And so i went from not worrying about money because i was pretty poor to not worrying about money cause i had a lot of money. Jobs becomes rich. Jobs becomes wildly rich, makes about 100 people millionaires when apple goes public. One of the things he does, though, thats, you know, still caused a little ill will there were old friends who used to be with him in the garage, his parents garage, and they were working at apple, but they hadnt quite gotten to the level of chief engineer, so they got no Stock Options. Wozniak, being incredibly generous, is giving away his Stock Options trying to make everybody a millionaire, and steve jobs is, like, very strict on who can get the stock option. One of the people who didnt get them was daniel kottke, who had been with jobs at reed college, in india, and in the garage where apple was founded. And at one point, tries to go to steve and just starts crying, but steve can be very cold about these things. Finally one of the engineers at apple said, you know, we have to take care of your buddy daniel. Ill give him some stock if you match it, or whatever. And jobs says, yeah, ill match it. Ill give zero; you give zero. It was not the only instance of his callous behavior during that time period. Just before apple went public, his longtime girlfriend became pregnant, producing a daughter, lisa. Jobs, who had himself been born out of wedlock and abandoned, denied paternity and refused to pay support until the courts intervened. His behavior was typical of a phenomenon that apple employees openly referred to as steves reality distortion field a term out of star trek the ability to convince himself and others to believe almost anything using his indomitable will and charisma to bend any fact to suit his purpose. When he was creating the original macintosh, steve jobs would come in, and he would say, we need to have this done by next month. And people would say, no, no. You cant actually write this much code by next month. And he would say, yes, you can do it. And in the end, he would not take no for an answer, and he would sort of make the dent in the universe he wanted to. He would bend reality, and they would accomplish it. The reality distortion field, it seems like sometimes you use it, that phrase, to speak to what you see as sort of a selfdelusion. He could drive himself by magical thinking, by believing something that the rest of us couldnt possibly believe, and sometimes it worked; sometimes it didnt. And at the root of this reality distortion theory, isaacson says, was jobs belief that he was special and chosen and that the rules didnt apply to him. He had a great mercedes sports coup with no license plate on, as that was his affection but no license plate . He always believed i said, why dont you have a license plate . At one point he said, well, i dont want people following me. I only want people and i said, well, having no license plate is actually more noticeable. He said, yeah, youre probably right. You know why i dont have a license plate . I said, why . He said, cause i dont have a license plate. That disregard for the establishment helped him achieve some of his biggest successes, allowing him to see products and applications that no one else imagined. So in 1984, apple introduced a truly revolutionary product the macintosh. It used graphics, icons, a mouse, and the pointandclick technology that is still standard. It was innovative and influential, but sales were disappointing, and jobs confrontational management style became even more brittle. He would try and rationalize it in this taped interview with isaacson. I feel totally comfortable going in front of everybody else, you know, god, we really [bleep] up the engineering on this, didnt we . Thats the ante for being in the room. So were brutally honest with each other, and all of them can tell me they think im full of [bleep], and i can tell anyone i think theyre full of [bleep], and weve had some riproaring arguments where were yelling at each other. Jobs loved the arguments but not everybody else did, and isaacson writes that some of his top people began defecting. He was not the worlds greatest manager. In fact, he could have been one of the worlds worst managers. You know, he was always, you know, upending things and, you know, and throwing things into turmoil. This made great products, but it didnt make for a great management style. Jobs would eventually provoke a boardroom showdown with apple president john sculley over who should lead the company. The board chose sculley. So he was out of his own company. Kicked out of his own company, and, you know, he always had that feeling of abandonment. There was nothing worse than being abandoned by apple. He sold his stock and used the company to start a new venture called next computer, which made great products that no one bought. But jobs would be saved by a tiny company that he acquired from george lucas for 5 million. Pixar studios would eventually revolutionize movie animation and make jobs a multibillionaire. Apple hadnt done so well, and a decade after jobs left, it decided to buy next computer and the services of jobs as a consultant, but he would soon take over as ceo. And when he goes back, its almost bankrupt. Its, like, 90 days away from bankruptcy. Theyre totally out of money, and its lost its way totally. So he says, heres the 27, 30 things youre making, printers or whatever. And he draws a chart that just has four squares, and he says, professional, home consumer. Laptop, desktop. Were gonna make four computers. He retrenched, firing 3,000 people, and launched a new advertising campaign. Heres to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers. Steve jobs helped write that himself. He edited it 100he put in, they changed the world. By the end, jobs, along with four or five other people, have written this not as ad copy but as a manifesto. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. The Campaign Announced what would become the biggest comeback in business history, and it did change the world. That, plus steve jobs search for his birth parents and his battle with cancer when 60 minutes on cnbc returns. What does an apron have to do with Car Insurance . Every time you tie on an apron, you make progress. And we like that. Because progress is what we make, too. [ jackhammer pounding, horns honking ] [ siren wailing ] visit tripadvisor miami. [ bird chirping ] with millions of reviews, tripadvisor makes any destination better. Wit searching with devotion for a snack that isnt lame but this. Takes my breath away [ticking] when steve jobs returned to apple in 1997, the company had just 5 of the Computer Market and was almost broke. When jobs died of cancer 14 years later, apple was the second most valuable corporation in the world. In his bestselling biography of jobs, Walter Isaacson writes that he revolutionized or reimagined seven industries. He did it, isaacson says, by standing at the crossroads of science and the humanities, connecting creativity with technology, and combining leaps of imagination with feats of engineering to produce new devices that consumers hadnt even thought of. Thank you for coming. Were gonna make some history together today. If you had to pick a day where it all came together, january 9, 2007, is not a bad one. Jobs is in San Francisco at the macworld conference in full pitchman mode as he unveils his latest product to the faithful. These are not three separate devices. This is one device. [cheers and applause] and we are calling it iphone. It is not only a remarkable achievement but a validation of everything that jobs believed in if you made and controlled all of your own hardware and all of your own software, you could integrate all of your products and all of your content seamlessly into one digital hub. And no one but steve jobs had thought of it. This is something microsoft couldnt do cause it made software but not the hardware. Its something sony couldnt do cause it made a lot of devices, but it didnt really make software operating systems. And so the only company that had endtoend control was apple. Biographer Walter Isaacson writes that jobs had created a walled garden. If you wanted to use any of his products, it was easier to buy into the whole apple ecosystem. It was something only a complete control freak could have pulled off. His personality, passions, products, and private life were all intertwined and closely guarded. The more of it that Walter Isaacson got to see, the more he learned. What was his house like . His house in palo alto is a house on a normal street with a normal sidewalk no big, winding driveway; no big security fences. You can drive in the driveway . You could walk into the garden in the back gate and open the back door to the kitchen, which used to not be locked. It was a normal family home, and he said, i wanted to live in a normal place where the kids could walk, the kids could go over to other peoples houses, and i did not want to live that nutso lavish lifestyle that so many people do when they get rich. There was no livein help and no entourage. He was worth 7 billion but not materialistic. And he told isaacson in a taped interview that he had learned early on what money could do to people. I saw a lot of other people at appleand especially after we went publichow it changed them. And a lot of people thought they had to start being rich, so they wouldi mean, a few people went out and bought rollsroyces, and they bought homes, and their wives got plastic surgery, and theyand i saw these people who were really nice, simple people turn into these bizarro people. And i made a promise to myself. I said, i am not gonna let this money ruin my life. Do you have a picture of the family . Oh, sure. Isaacson showed us some personal family pictures that jobs had given him for his book shortly before he died. It was a look into a part of jobs life that few people had seen. This is laurene, and thats erin, reed, eve, and this is on their family vacation. Jobs married Laurene Powell in 1991, a former investment banker who could hold her own with her mercurial husband. And shes a great balance. He knows to pick strong people to be around him, and he sure did when he married laurene. Now, this is. Reed, his son. Reed is very much like his father, except for, he has his mothers kindness. Eve is a great horseback rider. Eve, i think, might someday be in the olympics with horseback riding. Erin has a great sense of design, is a really cool kid. His fourth child is lisa brennanjobs, the daughter jobs had with his girlfriend in 1978 and neglected for more than a decade until she moved in with the family as a teenager. Isaacson said their reconciliation was important to jobs because his own birth parents had abandoned him. He felt there was a hole. He felt something was missing. In 1986, he began searching for his biological mother and found Joanne Schieble Simpson Living in los angeles. Did she know that her son, the son that she gave up, was steve jobs . No, but she says to him, theres one thing that i have to tell you you have a sister. And the sister i raised, we did not put up for adoption. And i must tell her cause ive never told this. And the sister turns out to be mona simpson, the novelist. And mona simpson and steve jobs totally bond. Separated at birth, as they say. And then they go on a quest, a journey, to find their birth father. Especially mona wants to find what she calls the lost father. Eventually they locate Abdul Fattah John jandali, a syrianamerican with a phd in Political Science who was managing a restaurant in sacramento. But as jobs tells isaacson on tape, he decides to let mona go meet him alone. When i was looking for my biological mother, obviously, you know, i was looking for my biological father at the same time. And i learned a little bit about him, and i didnt like what i learned. And i asked her to not tell him that wed ever met and not tell him anything about me. So mona goes to the coffee shop, meets this guy, mr. Jandali, whos running it, who says, among other things when she asks, you know, how sorry he is. But then he says that he had had another child, and mona said, what happened to him . He said, oh, i dont know, well never hear from him again. And then he says, i wish you could have seen me when i was running a bigger restaurant. I used to run one of the best restaurants in Silicon Valley. Everybody used to come there. Even Steve Jobs Used to eat there. And monas sort of taken aback and bites her tongue and doesnt say, steve jobs is your son. But she looks shocked, and he says, yeah, he was a great tipper. And i was in that restaurant once or twice, and i remember meeting the owner, who was from syria, and it was most certainly him, and i shook his hand, and he shook my hand, and thats all. And jobs never spoke to him, never talked to him, never got in touch with him, never wanted to see him. [ticking] coming up, steve jobs delays cancer surgery. How could such a smart man do such a stupid thing . You know, i think that he kind of felt that if you ignore something, if you dont want something to exist, you can have magical thinking, and it had worked for him in the past. More steve jobs when 60 minutes on cnbc returns. Youre driving along, having a perfectly nice day, when out of nowhere a pickup truck slams into your brand new car. One second it wasnt there and the next second. Boom youve had your first accident. Now you have to make your first claim. So you talk to your Insurance Company and. Boom youre blindsided for a second time. They wont give you enough money to replace your brand new car. Dont those people know youre already shaken up . Liberty mutuals new car replacement will pay for the entire value of your car plus depreciation. Call and for drivers with accident forgiveness, Liberty Mutual wont raise your rates due to your first accident. Switch to Liberty Mutual insurance and you could save up to 423 dollars. Call Liberty Mutual for a free quote today at see Car Insurance in a whole new light. Liberty mutual insurance. [ticking] the cancer that eventually killed steve jobs was discovered accidentally. While he was being checked for kidney stones back in 2004, a cat scan showed a shadow on his pancreas that turned out to be a malignant tumor. But as jobs biographer Walter Isaacson told us, the initial prognosis was a positive one. They do a biopsy, and theyre very emotional. They say, this is good. Its one of these very slowgrowing, 5 of pancreatic cancers that can actually be cured. But steve jobs doesnt get operated on right away. He tries to treat it with diet. He goes to a spiritualist. He goes to various ways of doing it macrobiotically, and he doesnt get an operation. Why doesnt he get it operated on immediately . You know, ive asked him that, and he said, i didnt want my body to be open. And soon everybody is telling him, quit trying to treat it with all these roots and vegetables and things. Just get operated on. But he does it nine months later. Too late. Well, one assumes its too late cause by the time they operate on him, they notice that it has spread to the tissues around the pancreas. How could such a smart man do such a stupid thing . You know, i think that he kind of felt that if you ignore something, if you dont want something to exist, you can have magical thinking, and it had worked for him in the past. He regretted, you know, some of the decisions he made, and certainly, i think, he felt he should have been operated on sooner. Jobs acknowledged his surgery but softpedaled the seriousness of the situation. Isaacson writes he continued to receive secret cancer treatments even though he was telling everyone he had been cured. And that is what people believed until 2008. In 2008, he unveiled the iphone 3, but that wasnt the main story. All of a sudden, people are gasping because hes lost so much weight; he looks so frail. And suddenly people are realizing that hes very sick again. He denies it publicly. He puts out things that theres a hormone imbalance, which has a tiny kernel of truth to it because his liver was secreting the wrong hormones, but it wasnt just a hormonal imbalance; it was because the cancer had gone to his liver. Jobs finally took a medical leave of absence and, in march of 2009, received a secret liver transplant in memphis that wasnt publicly acknowledged until three months later. The doctors who did the operation could tell that the cancer had spread. But jobs returned to work to unveil the ipad, and he continued working right up until the end. What were those last 2 1 2 years of his life like . He talked a lot to me about what happened when he got sick and how it focused him. He said he no longer wanted to go out, no longer wanted to travel the world. He would focus on the products. He knew the couple of things he wanted to do, which was the iphone and then the ipad. He had a few other visions. I think he would have loved to have conquered television. He would love to make an easytouse television set. So he had those things, but he started focusing on his family again as well. In their final meetings, jobs would occasionally bring up the subject of death. I saw my life as an arc and that it would end. And compared to that, nothing mattered, you know . I mean, youre born alone, youre gonna die alone, and does anything else really matter . I mean, what exactly is it that you have to lose, steve, you know . Theres nothing. He survived nearly eight years with his cancer and in the final meeting with isaacson in midaugust, still held out hope that there might be one new drug that could save him. Did you have any discussions with him that day or at any other time about an afterlife . I remember sitting in his backyard in his garden one day, and he started talking about god. He said, sometimes i believe in god; sometimes i dont. I think its 50 50, maybe. But ever since ive had cancer, ive been thinking about it more, and i find myself believing a bit more. I kind ofmaybe its cause i want to believe in an afterlife, that when you die, it doesnt just all disappear. The wisdom youve accumulated, somehow it lives on. Then he paused for a second, and he said, yeah, but sometimes i think its just like an onoff switch click, and youre gone. And then he paused again, and he said, and thats why i dont like putting onoff switches on apple devices. Steve jobs resigned as apples ceo in august 2011, just six weeks before his death. His handpicked successor was tim cook, a longtime apple lieutenant who had run the company during jobs periods of medical leave. Jobs is a tough act to follow, but cook celebrated his First Anniversary at the apple helm just as the companys market capitalization had topped 623 billion. That mark, obtained on august 20, 2012, made apple the most valuable listed company of all time, breaking the previous record set in 1999 by longterm rival microsoft. [ticking] coming up, how the ipad is helping the autism community. Hes completely communicating. Absolutely. Hes part of the community. I mean, communication is the essence of being human, and here he is, communicating fully now. Apps for autism, when 60 minutes on cnbc returns. So were all set . Yyyup. With xfinity internet your family can use all their devices at once. Works anywhere in the house. Even in the garage. Max whats going on . Were doing a tech startup. Were streamlining an algorithm. Were going public [cheering] the fastest inhome wifi for your entire family. The x1 entertainment operating system. Only from xfinity. [ticking] after steve jobs died in 2011, there was an outpouring of gratitude from his fans for the way his inventions changed their lives. Among the most passionate are parents of children with severe forms of autism, especially those who cant speak and appear hopelessly locked inside themselves. Those parents often say these kids understand more and know more than theyre able to communicate. Well, now with the help of the ipad and other Tablet Computers, some of those parents are finding out they were right. As lesley stahl first reported in october 2011, it turns out that with specially designed applications, or apps, these computers are helping to unlock the isolation of people like joshua hood. Imagine spending your life having conversations like this. P. L. Having to poke out words on a laminated piece of paper one letter at time. C, plastic. It was so frustrating for josh, his mother, nancy, says he would often give up and retreat into himself. At family gatherings, he was sidelined because no one understood him. At school, he sat passively in class, unable to participate. When josh was feeling bad or really needed something, the family resorted to charades. So youd be, like, you know, can you spell it . Can you show me . Oh, how frustrating. And so he would you would act it out almost . He would. He would look around a room, and hed see if he could find something that sounded like it. Just to tell you one little thing. One thing that he wanted, yes. How are you . But not anymore. I want a drink. For the past year, josh has been using an apple ipad as his voice, and he is well, hes reborn. And what are we having to eat today, josh . I want bagel, bacon, please. Okay. Now when he goes to the local diner, he can order his breakfast himself. Joshs mom downloaded a special language app and added pictures, videos, and symbols that allow him to convey his feelings. Happy. What he wants. Toys. And what he watches on tv. Tv news, 60 minutes. My first 60 minutes interview on an ipad. I asked about his brother, jimmy. And how old is jimmy, is he keyboard. Numbers. 2, 6. Jimmy 26. So hes one year younger than you are. Is he your best friend . Aww. Does that mean you love him . Yeah . Josh is typical of people with autism in that he rarely looked directly at me, he rocks, and he has obsessions. In his case, its world war ii. Hogans heroes season 6. His therapist, tammy taylor, will never forget the first time she put the ipad into his hands. What had been bottled up inside him began to pour out. It just blew me away that he could actually tell me his brother had a goatee and was bald. Hes completely communicating. Absolutely. Hes part of the community. I mean, commutation is the essence of being human, and here he is, communicating fully now. Categories. Feelings. Happy. Joshua happy. Tell me whats happening inside of you as your son starts to tell you what hes been thinking . Hes probably been trying to tell you for 27 years. Mindboggling, to tell you the truth. I always had said when he was younger, it was like, you know, he was a computer and i was computer illiterate, and i didnt know how to press the right keys. Sorry. To get him to communicate. It was just, you knowthat was the hard part is, you knew there was more in there, and you didnt know how to get it out. Touch screen computers help josh communicate. Can they do the same for these children at the Beverley School in toronto, canada. [screaming] where half the students are severely autistic and more impaired than josh . The day we were there, Kindergarten Teacher Sabrina Morey struggled to figure out why sevenyearold nathan was so upset. Students dont have a way to communicate with me. They dont have a way to tell me how theyre feeling, what they want, what they need. Oh, look, the ipads here. For the past year, morey and her fellow teachers ian stuart and Stacie Carroll have been involved in the first study to find out just how effective the ipad is with their students. Has the ipad made any difference . The ipad has made a huge difference. Theres something about using the ipad that draws the students in. Theyre engaged with it in a way that we dont see with other toys or puzzles or teaching tools. The study has found that it improves the childrens willingness to socialize, something autistic kids have trouble with, and it enhances their Attention Spans. Can you look at the numbers, jennifer . In this video, recorded by the school, stacies trying to get little jennifer to focus on learning to count using the old paper method. So shes not paying attention right now . No, shes not looking at it. But what a difference with the ipad. One, two, three, four, five. Oh, thats wonderful. Look at her. Shes completely engrossed. Totally. I hear that autistic children often prefer machines to having an interaction with a human being. Is that what were seeing . What were thinking is that the device is constant, so the voice is constant. The pacing is constant. It waits. I might not wait as long. Youre unpredictable. Right. And they like order and control. Absolutely. [ticking] coming up, applying the lessons of apps. Youre discovering that theres more inside these childrens heads than you realized. And thats something, in a way, i feel like weve known, but this is giving us a tool to really show us and prove that there is more happening. Thats ahead when 60 minutes on cnbc returns. Searching with devotion for a snack that isnt lame but this. Takes my breath away you know what i love america . Fine barbecue, good times and zero heart burn. And thats why i take prilosec otc each morning for my frequent heart burn because it gives me zero heart burn. Prilosec otc the number one dr. 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Thats why, coming soon, xfinity will double the Internet Speed on two of our most popular plans. Xfinity continues to innovate, bringing you the fastest, most reliable internet, period. [ heart beating ] xfinity internet from comcast. Double the speed. [ heart beats ] [ticking] apps used with the ipad and other Tablet Computers are helping parents and teachers better communicate with autistic children. But as lesley stahl reported in october 2011, teachers are finding that, as with autism in general, theres a range of ability when it comes to benefiting from the ipad. What i found is that the device, the ipad, isnt for everyone. Its not for all my students. But the ones who are engaged by it, its reallyits amazing. Do you want to do some work . No. No. No. No. Do you want to do some work . No . No. No. No. No. It was thought that tenyearold nuno, who doesnt talk, had the i. Q. And Attention Span of a toddler. Touch the one that is a healthy snack. Wheres the nice snack . Good snack . Yeah awesome. So when ian tested him with a new vocabulary app, he was surprised by how much he knew. Where is the wind chime . Great job. Touch the soldier. Yeah super. Did you know he knew all those words . No, absolutely not. Find the saxophone. Yeah you did it. And weve just recently found out that he has quite a love of Classical Music and opera. So heshes he has love of opera . Yes, he does. And you didnt know it. Didnt know it, yeah. Did that come through the ipad . It came through exploring music selections on the ipad. Youre discovering that theres more inside these childrens heads than you realized. And thats something, in a way, i feel like weve known, but this is giving us a tool to really show us and prove that there is more happening. Figuring out why so many autistic people are unable to speakas many as 30 of them is the subject of a Major Research study at the university of pittsburgh. We dont have a biological marker for autism in most cases at the moment. Neuroscientist dr. Walter schneider is investigating whether the language problems in autism are caused by a disruption in the brains connective circuits. What were gonna do now is the motor mapper. He invited temple grandin, the renowned professor of Animal Science and author of five books on autism, to have her brain scanned as his first subject. Okay, temple, the noise is gonna start. You doing all right . Im okay. Grandin has aspergers, a highfunctioning form of autism, but she had trouble learning to speak. My speech started coming in around, you know, 3, 3 1 2, a few stressed words at a time, like id say bah for ball. To analyze grandins brain, schneider used a new technique he developed called highdefinition fiber tracking that reveals the interior wiring in fine detail. This is a normal brain . This is a normal brain. First he showed us the fibers that make up the language circuit in a normal brain a streamlined bundle with offramps at the top. But what about in a brain with autism, like Temple Grandins . But youre gonna show us temples brain . Yes, were going to show the inside of temples brain. What i saw floored me. What did you think when you saw that . That is temple. That is that. That is that . That is this section and how it projects out. But thats dramatic. Thats dramatic. Schneider thinks this dramatic disorganization of the wiring may explain the language impairments seen in autism, but he wont know for sure until he scans more people. He hopes, among other things, that one day a brain scan will be able to diagnose autism early and tell parents if their child will ever speak. So hes affectionate. Hes very, very affectionate. Meantime, parents like amanda williams, nathans mother, are latching on to the ipad, marveling at how the device is opening windows into their childrens minds, even if the windows are open only a crack. I cant express to you enough, like, how amazing it is to watch him take his Little Finger and go like that in a controlled way. I think the thing that made us cry was when he flipped through it, and then he saw the tiger, and he went, oh, i got to go back. [tiger roaring] roar and wentboom. And he looked at us with this smile on his face, and hes like, i did it. And its such a tiny little thing. But itsfor him, its huge, right . Its huge. Its huge. Where do you see the ipad taking him . Whats the next step and the next step . We dont know what the future holds for him in terms of speech. We like to think and we still hope that one day speech will come in whatever form, but if it doesnt and if its not this will be his voice. This will be his voice. A report issued by the centers for Disease Control in march 2012 estimates that 1 in 88 children in the United States has been identified as having autism spectrum disorder. Thats a 78 increase in diagnoses over the decade since 2002. The reasons for this large increase are not entirely known, but as c. D. C. Director Thomas Frieden says, one thing the data tells us with certainty there are more children and families that need help. Well, thats our edition of 60 minutes on cnbc. Im bob simon. Thank you for joining us. [ticking] [ticking] i make money. Nothing wrong with it. Thats what i want to do. Thats what im here to do. Thats what i enjoy. You tell me youre a shareholder activist. I dont saythe name is the same. An activist is the same as a raider, you know. They call it whatever you want. Rose by any other name. So you havent changed . I havent changed at all. Not one iota. [ticking] eli and your lovely wife right here please. Eli broad may be very rich, but he says he wants to die poor. To achieve that, he gives money away by the bucket load. Half a billion dollars so far to los angeles, to disney hall, the l. A. Opera, the museum of contemporary art, three Scientific Research centers,