Hi, newbie here. Would be very grateful for any help.

I was using my iPad and for no reason it suddenly stopped responding to touch. I cannot even power it down as the confirmatory slider doesn't respond. I can (just) slide from one home screen to the next, but that is all. I thought if I could power it down it might reset, but I can't do that as I can't move the slider to confirm shut down.

I was typing something into a dialogue box and between one letter and the next, it stopped. The home button works, if that's relevant to anything. Updated to iOS5 last week. Everything else is unchanged including apps and settings. It was given to me in May so not even a year old. No evidence of damage to the screen, and no reason there should be any.

Can anyone help? Thank you.

Hold the home button and power button down. Keep holding them down even when you see the slide to shutdown. The unit should shut down. Cross your fingers and restart it.
Keep in mind that you get a one year warranty from apple. So if it isn't working, take it to an Apple Store.
Good luck!

That's done the trick! Thank you.

Glad to hear it worked. I don't know what led to your problem, but it's a good idea to shutdown the running apps every once in a while to free up the memory and occasionally shut the iPad down.