Evaluation Of existing Software for people with autism Results seminar Salman Alshalawi Supervisor Paul Calder

Outline Project overview. Project objectives. Methodology. Results. Data analysis. Analysis outcomes.

Project overview Evaluation of existing software made for people with autism. Based on publications. Categorized based on the methodology that each software uses to overcome a certain autism difficulty. Evaluation is based on analysing characteristics and outcomes of each software type..

Study objectives Identify difficulties or symptoms of autism that have or have not been addressed by software developers. Identify various software methodologies and the target of each. Suggest a certain type of software for a certain difficulty. State the characteristics of a successful software in the area of autism. Identify weaknesses and limitations of each software methodology.

Methodology Online bibliographies were searched in order to obtain studies of interest. An inclusion criteria was used to maintain the scope of the study. Studies were organized in different ways to extract data for the aim of analysis and evaluation.

Searching for publications Databases searched “IEEE” and “proquest” Keywords (Autis*, Asperger* ) in conjunction with (Comput*, software, application, technology, CBI, ipad, iPhone) Search results IEEE: The total of 167 papers were returned. Proquest: The total of 120 papers were returned. The abstract were read to determine relevance to the study.

Inclusion criteria To be included the study has to: include a software that has been examined by conducting an experiment. Include a software that focus on the treatment of a symptom or overcome a difficulty or teach a certain skill. Include at least one participant with autism in the experiment. Software is not combined with another intervention. Quantitative or qualitative results are included.

Organizing publications After applying the inclusion criteria, 31 studies were included. From each study, the following data attributes were extracted:  Software(name, description, platform, interaction mode)  Target category.  Participants(number of participants, gender, age, condition).  Experimental settings( location, period).  Outcomes.

Table sample CitationSoftwareTargetParticipantExperiment settingsOutcomes (Torii, Ohtani et al. 2012)Torii, Ohtani et al Name: Let’s Talk! Type: voice output communication aid Platform: PDA Interaction with: touch screen. communication Number: 1 Gender: male Age :11 years old Condition: participant has no ability to speak. Location: school Period: 9 months and 13 days Positive The application provided the participant with an easy way to requests his needs and communicates with others. The participant started to use body gesture to ask sometimes. (Hassan, Zahed et al. 2011)Hassan, Zahed et al Name: Unspecified (Developing the concept of money). Type: interactive computer game Platform: Windows. Interaction with: mouse and/or keyboard. Developing the concept of money and familiarizing the shopping environment. Number: 9 Gender: 5 males and 4 females. Age :9-14 years old Condition: 6 participants have difficulty understanding verbal instructions while 3 have no such difficulty Location: non-profit organization, (ACWF) in Bangladesh Period: unspecified. Positive. Software users showed slight improvements compare to other participants who have been taught in traditional way. The experiment results reflect variation based on frequency of using software. (Anwar, Rahman et al. 2011)Anwar, Rahman et al Name: Unspecified (improving fluency in speech). Type: interactive computer game Platform: all platforms that support JDK. Interaction with: microphone. Communication (Fluency in speech). Number: 1 Gender: female Age :10 years old Condition: participant has speech fluency problem Location: non-profit organization, (AWF) in Dhaka Period: 3 months Positive Less time taken to pronounce a certain word after using the software.

Target categoryNumber of studies communication6 Emotions and facial expression understanding5 collaboration3 Academic and cognitive5 Conversation skills3 Daily activities and problem solving6 Narrative understanding1 others4 Results data based on target category

Results data based on software type Software typeNumber of studies Virtual environment6 Multi-user surface3 Tangible interface2 Communication software2 Multimedia interactive software17 PowerPoint.2

Software typeTarget categoryNumber of studies Virtual environmentConversation skills3 daily activities and problem solving 1 Emotions and facial expression understanding 1 Academic and cognitive1 Multi-user surfaceCollaboration3 Tangible interfaceOthers (shape matching)2 Communication softwarecommunication2 Multimedia interactive software Others (developing the concept of money) 1 communication4 Emotions and facial expression understanding 4 Narrative understanding1 Daily activities and problem solving 4 Others (teaching logos and orthographic symbols) 1 Academic and cognitive3 PowerPoint. Daily activities and problem solving 1 Academic and cognitive1 Software type for each target category

Data analysis Further analysis on the data will be conducted for each software type to obtain the following: Software implementation requirements Software characteristics. Outcomes analysis. Strengths. Limitations.

Analysis outcomes Based on the analysis process, the study expected goals will be achieved. Recommendations regarding the use of software for autism treatment will be delivered. For each target category, suggestions about best software type for a particular target category will be delivered. Strengths and limitations will be identified.

Questions