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Update: Learning tablet stolen from 3-year-old boy with autism in Virginia Beach

Posted at 10:02 PM, Mar 19, 2013
and last updated 2013-03-20 19:57:51-04

Update: Newschannel 3 is getting results! The company has volunteered to Take Action and replace the little boy's tablet. Several NewsChannel 3 viewers have come forward to say they’d also like to Take Action and help. 

Virginia Beach, Va. - Mindy Kopenhafer's son Bracken has autism and is missing his favorite toy. Now a company has volunteered to take action and replace the tablet!

Kopenhafer said the learning tablet was stolen from her Virginia Beach store, The Thrifty Baby, last Friday.

At first she thought Bracken misplaced it in the shop.

"We opened up every box, every bag, and every bin,” she says.

But then she realized someone must have taken it. The tablet was reformatted for Bracken's needs, with special developmental apps to help him communicate and learn.

"There were educational games,” she says. “There were abc’s on it, abc puzzles, there were coloring games. His favorite was the fishing game.To them, it's just a game system, a computer, but to my son it's so much more than that."

Kopenhafer says Bracken got the tablet for Christmas and hasn't put it down since. He used it all day, every day until the battery died. It paid off.

"He went from not speaking at all to speaking pretty clearly because of it,” she says.

The nabi tablet is about 10 inches in length with a red rubber bumper frame.

"I don't care whether it was intentional or accidental, my son would just really like to have his computer back and so would we,” Kopenhafer says.

If you do have the tablet or may know who has it, you can bring it by The Thrifty Baby, located in the Kempsriver Crossing Shopping Center on Fordham Dr. You can also drop it off at any of the neighboring stores, no questions asked.

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