Executive Summary
Introduction and Background
Methodology
Results
Recommendations
Conclusion
Introduction and Background
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder that affects 1 in 100 individuals in New Zealand (AutismNZ, 2015). Children with this developmental disorder tend to lack the social skills that most people develop at an early age. This includes difficulty with communicating, interacting, identifying emotions, engaging attention, and adapting to new environments (CDC, 2015c). There is no specific approach to treating autism because every child has individualized needs; therefore, treatments for autism include a number of therapy methods. As new methods arise, technology such as computers, tablets, virtual environments, and large touch screens, play a more significant role in therapy in the autism community. Our sponsor is Callaghan Innovation, a government funded New Zealand agency whose main goal is to promote local technology-based businesses. Callaghan Innovation has developed a product designed to initiate conversation between autistic children through the use of a touchscreen device. This device allows students to learn how to communicate through the use of picture based icons to form sentences. Other than functioning as communication devices, tablets are tools that can develop the social skills of autistic and other special needs children. Online application stores that sell this software are helpful resources to learn about and purchase new applications and software for autism therapy.
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Methodology
This project was intended to assist Callaghan Innovation in analyzing the potential need for their new technological communication application in the autistic community. We accomplished these goals for Callaghan Innovation through our three objectives as shown in Figure 0.1:
- Determine which underdeveloped social skills in children with ASD therapy targets most
- Explore the prevalence in the ASD community of technology devices, specifically, tablets and touchscreens in autism therapy
- Identify end user needs and desired improvements in regards to technology in ASD therapy.
Our main method of data collection for these objectives was to conduct 19 stakeholder interviews with members of the New Zealand autism community. These stakeholders did not include children because we focused on those that could evaluate the effectiveness of the products and were involved in the product selection process. We categorized these interviewees into four stakeholder categories based on their experiences: parents of children with autism, therapists who worked on developing skills with autistic children, teachers who had experience instructing children with autism in a school setting, and assistive technology specialists whose role is to design therapy around the use of assistive technology devices. Due to the varying levels of background knowledge of our interviewees, these interviews were unstructured but we had specific overarching themes that we inquired about in each interview. These main themes were targeted social skills, methods used, opinions on technology from adults and their perception of their children’s opinions, and finally the concerns and desired improvements for these methods. Our main topic was the social skills the stakeholders focus on developing most at home, school, and therapy and the methods they use to do so. We also asked about the stakeholders’ opinions regarding these technological methods and how they thought they could be improved. Finally, we inquired about the level of success that the ASD children have in utilizing these methods.
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Results
After compiling the data collected in these interviews, the group organized and coded it thematically to identify trends to make conclusions about our stakeholder group. One result was all but two of the stakeholder responses fell into one of the following five social skills categories: verbal communication, peer interaction, behaving appropriately, reading emotions, and coping with unexpected events. A major finding from our results was that more than half of our participants mentioned communication as the most important social skill to develop in children with autism. Since at least one person from each stakeholder group had this opinion, it shows that developing communication skills is of importance to all stakeholders.
Another finding of this project was related to the devices primarily utilized in the autism community. One of our major findings was that tablets were the main technological tool that 11 out of our 19 stakeholders integrated into their social skill therapy. However, we also observed that the majority, namely five out of seven, of our parent interviewees mentioned that their children have not used a tablet or iPad to develop social skills. The parents who had no experience with tablets in therapy attributed this to the fact that their children were out of therapy and the technology was not fully developed during their childhood. However, these parents mentioned that they would have been willing to try these tools with their children but did not have the opportunity.
The next findings are the result of our interview questions regarding interviewees’ opinion on technology in ASD therapy. A number of of stakeholders mentioned that technology cannot replace a teacher and that they believed it can be a successful tool if it includes another person in the therapy process. Four interviewees were very passionate about this opinion and another five also mentioned this idea. Additionally, some interviewees said that though technology can assist in this area, developing relationships with other people is the most effective component to improving social skills. In addition, a portion of these stakeholders believed that the children were drawn to technology and enjoyed using it saying that “it makes sense to them”, it allows “simple cause and effect” support, and “errorless learning.”
The next set of results dealt with concerns and challenges regarding technological devices in autism therapy. One difficulty that we observed during our data analysis was that some of the interviewees’ children were not able to delineate when it was time to work and time to play when using a tablet. Because a tablet can be used as an educational tool as well as a toy for games and entertainment, a child sometimes has the tendency to be distracted from education by fun.
Another concern was getting the funding needed for the more expensive technology tools. Because the Ministry of Education reserves the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme (ORS) for autistic children with very high needs, three out of seven parents and four out of six therapists said that it is very difficult for families with lower needs children to afford the more technologically advanced products. Additionally, several stakeholders were concerned that technology was not reliable because it has a tendency to have functional issues and when it needs repairs it takes too long to fix. This was a particular concern of the four therapists we interviewed at Kimi Ora Special Needs School because they mainly worked with children with a lack of motor control who had a tendency to be rough on these devices. The need for individuality and customization of the method used to help the autistic children was a common theme that interviewees brought up. At least one person from each group, with a total of eight, went out of their way at various points throughout the interviews to express their concern about ensuring that the child’s specific needs were met by the therapy.
The stakeholders also provided suggestions for improvement on therapy products that they used based on their experience. One such improvement that three stakeholders mentioned was the need for a more culturally appropriate approach to the design of the applications. Given that New Zealand is a rather small country, we discovered that applications with built-in voices were not specific to the country and often spoke with an American or British accent. 83% of our interviewed therapists and 66% of the assistive technology specialists suggested an increase in the functionality and extent of the vocabulary in assistive communication devices. This is because the special needs individual needed to be given the opportunity to communicate in a manner that exceeds functional interaction and requests. Another suggestion was targeting the product’s ease-of-use because a number of therapists mentioned that the communication devices they worked with were often too complex to be effective with the children. A final improvement that all the interviewed teachers and one therapist wanted to see was an increase in research, data, and results to back up the claims that the companies make involving the successes of their products. An additional result was that some of the parents and therapists believed there was insufficient training for public school teachers on how to teach children with autism. Two out of seven parents and one therapist out of three had the opinion that teachers need to be trained better for this role.
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Data Based Recommendations
We created a set of four recommendations based on the final results of our project for a product that could potentially fit the needs of this ASD community. First, because our interviewees believed that communication was the most important social skill to address in therapy, this product should focus on developing communication skills. Second, a tablet should be the primary platform for the software application because of the large percentage of stakeholders who have familiarity and positive outlook on tablets. Additionally, the product should have customizable features in order to individualize to the needs and cultural situations of the students using it. Finally, the product should be collaborative and require use with more than one person in the therapy process. In this way the product will support socialization with human to human interaction.
Opinion Based Recommendations
We also created a set of recommendations based on our team’s opinions as well as the information we received from background research and general feelings from the interviews. Because software that includes many visuals tends to be more effective with autistic children, we recommend that a new product be highly picture based to apply to this type of learning. Moreover, repetition and consistency are product characteristics that should be taken into consideration and incorporated during development, because autistic children often desire routine while learning, as it makes the therapy procedure less stressful and more effective. Furthermore, a product should be easy to use and it should be accompanied by an in depth tutorial that the instructor can reference to ensure that the application is being implemented correctly.
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Conclusion
With the results and recommendations that we generated from our research, we hope that Callaghan Innovation will be able to evaluate their current product and determine how well it will address the needs of the autism community. Due to our limited size and potential bias in representation, more research should be done to better understand and generalize the needs of this community. We concluded that a product that fits the needs of this community could have potential for success but due to the difficulty that consumers have navigating the marketplace additional research in efficient commercialization techniques should be done to increase this possibility for success.
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