The effectiveness of assistive technology ( TAPi t ® and VizZle ® ) to enhance progress of young children with autism spectrum disorders (original) (raw)
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THE USE OF ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGIES FOR THE LEARNING DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER (ASD) (Atena Editora), 2023
The present work entitled “Special Education: The use of assistive technologies for the development of learning in children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD)” addresses relevant aspects regarding the importance of inclusion in the educational system. We also address the importance of the participation of education professionals in this scenario, so that citizens can in fact be formed not only in the school context, but especially in society. In this context, the objective is to investigate the potential of assistive technologies as a tool for developing the learning of students with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in regular education. Therefore, the methodology used in this work was a bibliographical research, through books and articles by renowned authors that clearly deal with the subject under study.
Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) typically face challenges in communication and social interaction, with restricted sensory abilities and repetitive behaviour. Approximately 1 in every 110 Australian children is diagnosed with ASD. The provision to support children with ASD is challenged by their unique characteristics and complexities. Further, many countries have poorly structured guidelines for support or use of intervention services that are not integrated, and there is a shortage of educational and healthcare professionals to sustain interventions for children with ASD. Technology-based interventions hold great promise for better support and service of children with ASD; they can profile abilities, encourage and track development, and potentially enable better individualised interventions to support each child. This research explored how to support communication between home and school for children with ASD who have limited verbal skills, by designing, implementing and evaluating an iPad application. The iPad application called MyCalendar allowed students and their families and teachers to record photos and videos of activities both at home and at school, presenting them in a calendar format, to support sharing between the settings of home and school. MyCalendar was evaluated with four teachers, ten parents and eleven children aged between five and seven years old over six months. The children were in years preparatory to Year 2 of the Special Education Unit of an Australian State School catering for children with ASD. We found that MyCalendar was successfully used by parents and teachers to better understand both a child's behaviour and the activities in which they engaged across settings. MyCalendar was also found to stimulate excitement and interest in video and photo sharing, and was used as a tool to model both behaviour and language. The significant contributions to knowledge are: 1. A new mobile technology based application (MyCalendar) to support communication between home and school. 2. Short and long term evaluations of use of the application. v 3. Methods of engaging children with ASD that focus around their own motivations, activities and interests and therefore support development of each individual child. 4. A new method of supporting language, behaviour modelling and modelling of writing for non-verbal children with ASD. Most importantly, the significance of this research is to present a new collaborative model of parent-child-teacher interactions using a technology-based intervention to support children with ASD between home and school. vi
International Journal of Psychology and Psychoanalysis, 2015
Assistive Technology (AT) defines and includes any device, equipment or piece that promotes new skills, increases existing (i.e. adaptive) behaviors, or reduces the negative consequences of disabilities on daily functioning [1,2].The adopted technology may be sophisticated (i.e. high tech) or simply (i.e. low tech). For instance, a child may be exposed to a complex computer-based program aimed at enhancing his/her request and choice opportunities or could exchange pictures or cards for communicative purposes [3,4]. Irrespective of its complexity, AT is focused on the improvement of independence and self-determination of participants involved, with beneficial effects on their quality of life [5,6]. That is, based upon learning principles (i.e. causal association between a behavioral response and environmental
Assistive Technology For Disabilities: A Case Study Of Autism In Teaching And Learning Outcomes
2016
The educational trajectory for future learning methods has changed from traditional learning in the classroom towards assistive technology strategies. The evolution of assistive technologies in the education setting has undergone enormous changes in terms of achieving teaching and learning outcomes, particularly for students with disabilities. A number of studies have highlighted new teaching techniques. There has been a trend in moving towards e-learning technologies in (Agarwal, 2012) and (Kemp, 2015), where those strategies were part of pedagogy techniques in teaching children with special needs. In the past few years, the increase in using assistive technologies such as tablet computers in education to support teaching and learning has led to innovation of more educational computer programs. Young children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), who suffer from a lack of social communication interaction and understanding of social pragmatisms, such as turn talking in conversation, ...
Review of Research on Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and the Use of Technology
Journal of Special Education Technology, 2015
This article presents the results of a review of research on children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and the use of technology. The review included 255 peer-reviewed research articles published between 2000 and 2010, archived in the ACM, IEEE, EBSCO, and ERIC databases. Content analysis was a method for analyzing articles. The results of the review indicated a clear growth in the number of research articles published during the last decade that addressed the issue of technologies for children with autism. Natural settings and field experiments were a typical methodology of the research, which reflected a strong link between academia and the field. On the other hand, the development of technologies took place separately from the user and children with ASD who participated in research activities in the latter stages of research and development. The results also indicated a strong research focus on the identification and provision of solutions to the problems typically related to ASD. Since the review only considered research focusing on problems related to ASD, future research will focus on the emergence of the capabilities and strengths of children afflicted with these disorders.
Interactive visual supports for children with autism
Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 2010
Interventions to support children with autism often include the use of visual supports, which are cognitive tools to enable learning and the production of language. Although visual supports are effective in helping to diminish many of the challenges of autism, they are difficult and timeconsuming to create, distribute, and use. In this paper, we present the results of a qualitative study focused on uncovering design guidelines for interactive visual supports that would address the many challenges inherent to current tools and practices. We present three prototype systems that address these design challenges with the use of large group displays, mobile personal devices, and personal recording technologies. We also describe the interventions associated with these prototypes along with the results from two focus group discussions around the interventions. We present further design guidance for visual supports and discuss tensions inherent to their design.
Supporting the Education of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders
This chapter provides readers with an overview regarding empirical evidences available in the literature within the last decade (i.e., 2005-2015) concerning the use of assistive technology for children with autism spectrum disorders. According to the including and excluding criteria, 36 studies were retained and grouped in four main categories, namely: (a) communication skills, (b) adaptive and/or social skills, (c) life skills, and (d) challenge behaviors. The first aim of the chapter was to outline strengths and weaknesses of the aforementioned studies. The second objective of the chapter was to emphasize practical applications of assistive technology-based programs. Finally, the third purpose was to discuss the findings pointing out some useful guidelines for future research. Results were fairly positive, although some failures occurred. Clinical, educational, psychological and rehabilitative implications were also discussed.
Research, Society and Development, 2021
The purpose of this systematic review was to present, through a critical approach, interpretation and evaluation, the current assistive technology research directions, and the range, capabilities and efficiency of mobile devices and their respective software applications and the virtual reality and augmented reality environments used for people with autism. The aim was to identify the assistive technology practices applied for the development of communication, social and vocational-employment skills for people with autism, and to evaluate their acceptability and effectiveness. Search in electronic databases resulted in a final selection of 63 studies that met the inclusion criteria of the review, covering a total of 406 participants with autism. Analysis of the data from the studies provided largely positive results.
Klavina, A., Pérez-Fuster, P., Daems, J., Lyhne, C.N., Dervishi, E., Pajalic, Z., Øderud, T., Fuglerud, K.S., Markovska-Simoska, S., Przybyla, T., Klichowski, M., Stiglic, G., Laganovska, E., Alarcão, S.M., Tkaczyk, A.H., & Sousa, C. (2024). The use of assistive technology to promote practical sk..., 2024
Persons with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and/or intellectual disability (ID) have difficulties in planning, organising and coping with change, which impedes the learning of daily living skills (DLSs), social participation and self-management across different environmental settings. Assistive technologies (ATs) is a broad term encompassing devices and services designed to support individuals with disabilities, and if used in a self-controlled manner, they may contribute inclusion in all domains of participation. This comprehensive literature review aims to critically assess and unify existing research that investigates the use of assistive technology within the practical domain for individuals with ASD and/or ID. The 18 relevant studies included in this review highlighted the benefits of AT for social participation and independence in daily activities of individuals with ASD and/or ID. Professionals working with this target group should be knowledgeable of the speedy progress of AT products and the potential of persons with ASD and/or ID to use mainstream devices to meet their individual needs. This awareness provides an opportunity to advocate for the universal benefits of AT for everyone. Technologies such as virtual reality, mobile applications and interactive software have been shown to improve DLSs, communication and social interaction. These tools offer engaging, user-friendly platforms that address the specific needs of these individuals, enhancing their learning and independence.
Journal of ICSAR
Providing interventions for children with autism requires various methods and learning media. Visual Support has long been implemented to help train communication skills in children with autism. Recently, many applications have developed as assistive technology to help children with autism in the learning environment. This study aims to elaborate on the visual design integrated into application-based assistive technology for children with autism. The method used in this research is a Systematic Literature Review. Based on the data tracing results, several references have been collected that specifically discuss the design of visual Support. From the data analysis, it can be concluded that visual Support is important to be integrated into digital applications to help children with ASD to carry out daily activities in various environmental settings. The development of visual support design must refer to the prerequisite rules to support the suitability of their characteristics and needs.