2014 IEEE 2014 International Conference on Computer, Communication, and Control Technology (I4CT 2014), September 2 4, 2014 - Langkawi, Kedah, Malaysia
Form Design Development Study on Autistic Counting Skill Learning Application Kamaruzaman.M.F.1, M.H.H Azahari. Faculty of Art and Design, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450 Shah Alam, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia Formgiving Research Entity, Design and Creativity Communities of Research, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450 Shah Alam, Selangor,Malaysia
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[email protected] preference for autistic children may differ from what is received by typical children in the mainstream education. Autistic children will need special attention and special goal when it comes to their education. Hence, individuals with autism were believed to calculate in a different way when it comes to measuring up to ordinary emergent individuals [4][5][6]. Autistic individuals vary from characteristically rising individuals in terms of their ability to calculate. This ability may affect their level of self-determination. On the other hand, children with autism is said to prefer instructions delivered through digital devices such as tablets [7]. Literature also shows that skilled application of technology may increase many areas of independence for children with ASDs. Plus, many autistic children have problems with their psychomotor. For that case, it is believed that by using touch-screen technology application. This research may result a better alternative and is useful for the autistic children to educate their motor skills. Basic counting skill is essential in one’s life to cope up with the surrounding world. Based on this necessity, an application for basic counting skill has been developed in this research for touch-screen based device in order to support the improvement of autistic children’s self-determination and independency.
Abstract — Children with autism have their own set of impairments that affect their developments. Thus, the chance to attain self-determination may be critical for most if not all of autistic children. However, it is essential for them to obtain vital skill system in order to achieve a certain level of independent. Thus, it is necessary for every autistic children to acquire basic counting skills to enhance their self-determination. With the emergence of assistive learning technology such as Smartphone, PDA, tablets and laptop with touch screen facility, there are new certain ways to enrich the quality of life for individuals with autism. This study aims to explore the basic counting skills based dynamic visual for children with autism that will possibly be of assistance to parents, educators and facilitators in the development of digital assistive learning tools to meet the needs of autistic children’s learning environment. From the proposed theoretical framework, an application was designed and tested on some of autistic users. Based on the observation of the experiment, the users showed positive attitude towards the outcome of the application. Index Terms— Autistic Children, Counting Skill, Education, Design Process, Embedded Technology.
I. INTRODUCTION Autism is a neurological disorder which cause the brain to function differently in processing information from the environment, resulting in strange behaviors' [1]. Known as autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), it has a cluster of developmental immobilize typified by impairments in public relations and communication and by constrained, recurring, and typecast model of behavior [2]. It is a developmental disability and is usually detected before the age of three, an age where a child is in his/her developmental period [1]. Developmental disability delays or cause problems to a child in many different skills that come about from early childhood to adulthood. In autism’s case, the impact of the disorder does not concern just on the individual him/herself but also the people around the individual. This is because the deficits will influence virtually all aspects of the parent-child relationship [3]. ASD is a lifelong condition that prohibits individuals from benefiting from certain senses such as hearing and vision. They were also deficit in term of empathy and self-expression. However, autistic children may be trained to respond better to their senses in order to help them to be more responsive to what they hear and organize the received information through all senses in a finer way [3]. In that case, the academic
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II. STATE OF THE ART More and more special educational needs children are using technological devices to carry out tasks and activities [8]. There has been variety of applications developed for the use of autistic children in these past few years. Many applications were designed as an instructional tool to teach autistic children the skills they need in order to enhance their selfdetermination. It has been found that the use of such application was well received by autistic children to incorporate them in the regular activities of their school. An application to develop autistic children’s empathy and expression was developed in Chile [7]. From the study that has been done, the children managed to interact with the application in a natural way. Although there are some difficulties in certain levels, it has been concluded that children with high functioning gain more benefits from the use of the application [7]. Other kind of application is assistive tool that helps autistic children to carry out the daily life. This type of tool is used as an ongoing support for users in completing a task differ from instructional technology, which is used to
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teach skills [7]. [9] developed voice output communication aid (VOCA) application to assist individual with ASDs to communicate called Let’s Talk. The application had been useful for ASDs individual not just to raise communication ability but also motivate him/her to understand others thoughts. In this study, an education application was developed to ameliorate basic counting skill for autistic children. However, ASDs individuals have a psycho-learning outline that varies from typical individual. There may be countless insufficiency in cognitive tasks, although not all of them were involved [6]. Compared to typical individual, autistic individual count up in a different way [9]. In terms of counting skills, children with ASDs differ from characteristically emergent by a slower consequence moment in time when inauguration figure, a later maturity of series dexterities and evoking arrangements and no detriment from identifying a canonical position of marks. Apart from that, they also show other kinds of vision spatial ability such as composed puzzles and accomplish capably at spatial, perceptual and mix match assignments [11]. On “local” visualspatial-task that requires finding parts within whole, they perform at skillful levels. The local processing tasks that autistic individuals excel are such as the Embedded Figures Task [12][13][14] and the Block Design Task [15][16]. Embedded Figures Task is a task in which one must find a small part hidden in a larger whole whereas the Block Design Task is a task in which one must use blocks to copy a twodimensional pattern. Experts believe that ASDs individual is able to understand better through visual.[6,10,17] mentioned some people with ASDs may easily learn and remember information that is presented in visual format. Plus, the major advantage of using info-graphic supports is that they may be able to be used everywhere and anytime to process the information. In developing the design application architecture more practical and usable, it is vital to look into user modeling acutely. It is believed that certain works pertaining to usability and user characteristic which shaping how the end user interact to the application system [18]. As stated by [6], the existing framework should consist of counting principles by [19] as basis.
recorded in order to analyse the autistic childern behavior [19]. It is also believed that, the natural atmosphere play an vital role towards generate an adequate and fine response from the autistic children. Any issues and matter arise during this phase will be recognized and documented. The final stage which comprise compiling data and feedback from the instructor, mentor and parents of autistic children pertaining to the design application. IV. AUTISTIC USER INTERFACE APPLICATION A. The Content Application The basic counting application was designed according to the need of the autistic children [20]. The application consist of the basic numbering information, recognizing the number and drag and match numbering game. The language used in this application is English Language and Malay Language (Bahasa Malaysia) as it is the mainly common language used by the autistic children in Malaysia. The contents were divided into two parts which is learn to count and exercise on the numbering. B. The Development of the Basic Counting Application The basic counting application is designed according to the need of autistic children. Designing assistive learning systems for autistic children should contemplate the existing limitations [19]. The first stage is analysis phase, where the main purpose of this phase was to consider all factors that related to the project and so it will produce a desirable result. The investigation involved with several number of autistic children. To comprehend the need of the autistic children, interviews were held with the instructor, mentor and parents at the beginning of the stage. It is believed that, all process that has been done was to identified the issues and purpose for this application. The goal of this investigation is to develop a prototype that focus on the method of learning how to count. Based on the information in the analysis phase, a hypothetical design of the application was composed. The elementary design application need to emphasize on the practicality and usability testing as the key objective. Mood board and storyboard was formed to identify the interface design of the application. The visual layout has been delicately thought to ensure the overall application is pleasurable and ease to use. Aspect such as the autistic children skill and ability to use the assistive learning technology such as Tablet, Smartphone and computer was taken into contemplation. Dynamic visual elements such as audio video, animation, text and graphics were included into the design to enrich the application.
III. RESEARCH DESIGN DEVELOPMENT Five main phase are imply in developing the autistic education application design model. The earliest stage which comprise the autistic issues on learning how to count, objectives, possibility, autistic children and lifelong learning environment. The following stage is forming the outline of the design application which include building the mood board, storyboard and prototype model. This model will also look into certain element and aspect of autistic user interface, dynamic visual and its contents. Third phase focuses on building the contents and materials based on the earlier phase. Next, the experiment stage comprise testing and analyzing the prototype towards the autistic children. At this stage, autistic expert do believe in making the investigation succeed, the instructor, mentor and parents will need to test the application toward the autistic children. A distance observation sessions were
C. Counting Skills Learning Application Experiment towards Autistic Children The counting skill application has been test to several number of autistic children in special school located in Klang Valley, Malaysia. In order to acquire the fine outcome from the said application, the experiment need to be lead and guide by the their respective teacher and instructor. It is believed that, with normal surroundings and environments the autistic children will feel natural and relaxed [21].
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Fig. 1. Application experiment toward autistic children development.
Before begin the experimentation, the teacher and instructor has been briefed on the structure of the said application. It include the interface, look and feel and most importantly the practicality and usability toward the autistic children self-development on understanding the basic calculation by using the embedded device. Based on the distance observation and teacher feedback, most of the autistic children were fond and enjoyed using the said application. It will be another good instrument for the children to learn to understand more regarding the basic calculation in and outside the classroom, technically this application will acknowledge what the teacher and instructor has been teach inside the classroom. Please refer to appendix 1.
Fig. 4. Get to know numbers and start to learn counting screen page
Fig. 5. Example of learning counting skill screen page
Fig. 2. Autistic children response after completing the experiment.
D. Design Application Screenshots The Figure 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 below are the print screen of the autistic counting skill learning design application. Fig. 6. Example of drag and drop on autistic counting skill learning application screen page
Fig. 3. Main page of autistic education design application screen
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Fig. 7. Example of place the sticks on autistic counting skill learning application screen page
[6] Kamaruzaman, M. F., et al. "Conceptual framework study of basic counting skills based dynamic visual architecture towards autistic children's development."IEEE Business Engineering and Industrial Applications Colloquium (BEIAC), 2013. [7] Ayres, K. M. Mechling, L. and Sansosti, F. J. (2013), “The Use of Mobile Technologies to Assist with Life Skills/Independence of Students with Moderate/Severe Intellectual Disability and/or Autism Spectrum Disorders: Considerations for the Future of School”, Psychology in the Schools, 2013 [8] Munoz, R. Barcelos, T. Noel, R. Kreisel, S. “Development of Software that Supports the Improvement of the Empathy in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder”, 31st International Conference of the Chilean Computer Science Society, 2012 [9] Torii, Ippei, Kaoruko Ohtani, Nahoko Shirahama, Takahito Niwa, and Naohiro Ishii. "Voice Communication Aid with Personal Digital Assistant for Autistic Children." In Intelligent Decision Technologies, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2012. [10] Mejia-Figuera, A. and Juares-Ramirez, R., “Developing Application for Autistic Users: Towards an Autistic User Model”, 2013 International Conference on Cloud & Ubiquitous Computing & Emerging Technologies, 2013. [11] Daan Dirk de Jonge, Autistic Number Learning, What Autism can tell us about the acquisition of number concepts, 2009. [12] Paul, R. Parents Ask: Am I Risking Autism if I Vaccinate my Child? Journal of Autism and Development Disorders. 2009. [13] Edgin, J. O., & Pennington, B. F. Spatial cognition in autism spectrum disorders: Superior impaired or just intact? Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 2005. [14] Jolliffe, T., & Baron Cohen, S. Are people with autism and Asperger syndrome faster than normal on the Embedded Figures Test? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 1997. [15] Mottron, L., Burack, J. A., Iarocci, G., Belleville, S., & Enns, J. T. Locally oriented perception with intact global processing among adolescents with high functioning autism: Evidence from multiple paradigms. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 2003. [16] Caron, M. J., Mottron, L., Berthiaume, C., & Dawson, M. Cognitive mechanisms, specificity and neural underpinnings of visuospatial peaks in autism. Brain: A Journal of Neurology, 2006. [17] Pellicano, E., Maybery, M., Durkin, K., & Maley, A. Multiple cognitive capabilities/deficits in children with an autism spectrum disorder: "weak" central coherence and its relationship to theory of mind and executive control. Development and Psychopathology, 2006. [18] P.Zhang,J.Carey, D.Te'eni, M.Tremaine. "Integrating Human Computer Interaction Development into SDLC; A Methodology". Proceedings of the Americas Conference on Information Systems, New York. August 2004. [19] Gelman, C.R,, & Gallistel, C.R. The child understands of number. Cambridge, MA: Havard University Press. 1978.M. Young, The Technical Writer's Handbook. Mill Valley, CA: University Science, 1989. [20] Kamaruzaman, M. F., M. H. H. Azahari, and R. Anwar. "Role of video application as an instructional strategy for students learning development."Humanities, Science and Engineering Research (SHUSER), 2012. [21] Hood Mohamad Salleh, Toran, H. Do you know Autism. We often misunderstood when in fact we are just different. 2014
V. SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY This investigation has important chance to bring a new learning style for autistic children in education field especially the mathematics subject. The autistic children will be able to build up their capability in academic and self-determination later on. It is also believed that the autistic children will probably share their understanding with their friends in term of basic calculation or anything related towards the application in and outside the classroom. VI. FINDINGS It is believed that the result from the experiment indicate the autistic children who are captivated with the application would eventually spend more time on the application to do the exercise. Thus, the autistic children will explore their idealistic conception beyond the logical perception as well as to attain their learning intersts in order to achieve self-independence. CONCLUSION While the autistic populace number continues to growth from time to time, it is believed that there are a lot of factor to learn and discover in order to treat the disorder. Majority of the teacher and instructor acquiesce that by using the assistive teaching technology it will enhance the autistic state of mind and motivate them to self acquire new knowledge This is only a progressive work on basic calculation learning application which was used in the prototype development. It is also believed that, the application was used as a psychoanalysis to improve the autistic children self-independent, lifelong learning and quality of life. Once the application completed, it will be tested utterly to the autistic children to determine the practicality and usability of the said model. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thank Ministry of Education Malaysia under the Research Acculturation Grant Scheme, Universiti Teknologi MARA and Research Management Institute for the administrative support. REFERENCES [1] Shriver, E. K., “Autism Overview: What We Know”, Springer Science Business Media. 2005. [2] American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. 4th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association; 2000. [3] Edwards, M. E. Autism. USA: Lucent Books Inc. 2001 [4] Wehmeyer, M.L., Shogren, K., Palmer, S., Williams-Diehm, K., Little, T., & Boulton, A. The impact of the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction on student self-determination. Exceptional Children, 2012. [5] Wehmeyer, M. L. Self –determination and learner with autism spectrum disorders. In R. Simpson & B. Myles (Eds.) Educating children and youth with autism,: Strategies for effective practice (2nd Edition) 2008.
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Appendix 1. Outcome of the experiment on autistic children development. Counting Skill Learning Application Ability to understand basic counting skill
Slow
5
Yes
√
2
6
Yes
3
4
Yes
4
4
Yes
5
5
Yes
6
6
Yes
7
7
Yes
8
6
Yes
9
5
Yes
10
4
Yes
Autistic Children
Age
1
Cognitive Level Deprived
Moderate
Good
Outstanding
Autistic Children Response Blur
√ √
Confuse Low
√
Psychomotor Level Low
Medium
√ √ √
Enthusiastic
√ √
Determine Connect
√
Enjoy
√ √ √
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Hyper Inspire Intense
High
√ √ √
√ √ √ √
