Fucking "specialised software" my ass. Maybe if your nephew was on the tailend of highschool, sure, but for a kid just starting any requirements would be miniscule.
Where I am, schools either provide students with laptops or do a "Bring your own device" policy. If students are special needs then the school will provide software licenses for any specialised software, be it text to speech software, specialised fonts for dyslexia, etc. Any hardcore software is reserved for higher education and even then it's mostly cloud based nowadays.
Schools which are BYOD will provide parents with a recommended list of specs for laptops, but some even provide laptops to hard off families as well.
Point I'm trying to make here is that every fucking school I know of can provide a laptop to at-risk students, and for any child under 12 the most you will need is the ability to type, play sub-720p video, connect to the internet and have a webcam. That's it. Lou could buy a $50 laptop from 2014 and have it be absolutely plenty for a kid's schooling from 6yo - 11yo.
Once again Lou, the real world rears it's ugly head to prove you both wrong and utterly fuckin' stupid.