Sounds like a good use of technology.  It's well known that some people on the Spectrum need to have visual schedules and a computer can do that well.  Sensory problems which prevent holding a pen can be avoided in some cases by touch-screen interfaces.  Saving money by using COTS hardware instead of custom stuff seems to work well in almost every case where it's tried.

Tablet type devices are the next stage in the development of computers.  PCs allowed every household to do their own computer stuff at home, laptops at prices where middle-class people can afford them allowed each person to have a transportable computer.  But cheap tablets allow everyone to have an instant-on computer for their own personal use.  Any time they want to know something or record something they can do it.

But Android is better in the long-term due to being more open.

Recently in Australia KMart has been advertising tablets for $150 - but they were always sold out when I wanted to look at them. Stores with stock have tablets for as little as $230 (that's the Huawei Ideos S7 which isn't a great tablet but it's OK). A bunch of new tablets are just being released with Android 3.0 so I expect that the ones running Android 2.x will start running out at low prices.

Android phones of decent spec from about 12-18 months ago have been on eBay for about $140 every time I've checked. The older phones aren't particularly good for tablet use. I have a Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 phone which is better than the vast majority of phones for tablet use (because it's about the largest phone that's affordable), but it's not that cheap.

eBay has tablets for well under $100 at the moment with a short time until the auctions close, but postage could be expensive.

So tablets aren't that far out of reach and the prices will only keep dropping.

Also a Netbook is something to consider, that doesn't give you the "instant on" feature but does allow taking notes in a more effective way than a tablet does. Netbooks are less than $400 new and the ones from a few years ago (with vastly lower specs) are still quite usable - my EeePC 701 that was designed in 2007 is still working well and in many ways is better than a lot of newer systems.

I don't trust the rapid advancement of technology when it comes to the survival of our existence.  Call me a Luddite, but if the curebies exploit technological advancement, we'll become extinct.