Muhammad Haziq Lim Abdullah
ABSTRACT
This paper presents MyCalendar; a visual calendar prototype App that was developed to support children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and language delays to communicate about their own activities and interests across the settings of home and school.
MyCalendar was developed following in-depth fieldwork and participatory design sessions with parents, teachers and children from Preparatory year to year 2 of an Australian Primary School Special Education Unit catering largely for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Typically, children with ASD face difficulties in participating at school.
MyCalendar was then evaluated over six months with four teachers, ten parents and eleven children. The study resulted in two key findings: (1) MyCalendar supported children who have ASD and limited verbal skills to better communicate their daily personal activities through photos and videos, encouraged by teachers and parents. (2) This deeper understanding of the children's daily lives enabled teachers to successfully model positive behaviours and to scaffold more relevant and meaningful learning opportunities by relating them to the children's lives.
While it was initially expected that the activities would better support communication between teachers and parents, the MyCalendar led in fact to novel scaffolding of learning opportunities and modeling of communication in the classroom.
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Index Terms
- MyCalendar: Fostering Communication for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder through Photos and Videos
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Reviews
Zachary Alstad
The MyCalendar system is an attempt to visually organize events and activities for students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and language processing deficits. It develops from prior systems focused on the mitigation of issues experienced by students with similar diagnoses. Because verbal instruction and guidance for these students has often proven to be a challenge, this tool offers a way of providing feedback and expressing oneself in a novel way. The authors demonstrate a precedent of research related to students with ASD and specifically the value of using visual information to engage them. Similar work that used visual information to assist in task switching and transitions for these students was generally successful in similar populations [1]. Overall, the feedback expressed by their subject teachers and parents was positive; however, the tone of the paper often reads as promotional rather than objective in its assessment of the MyCalendar system. While students with an ASD diagnosis may tend to be less verbal, this tool assumes that they have compensatory visual ability and will respond better to visual stimulus. Students may struggle with abstract and concrete ideas expressed in picture format. For example, the pictures may convey concrete activities that the student has on his or her schedule; however, how does one guarantee that the picture that represents an idea will generalize across varied contexts__?__ For research on the ASD community, it is important to also consider the level of cognitive load placed on the student as he or she uses a tool. Impairments in self-regulatory systems associated with working memory and executive function tend to be lacking in students with autism [2]. Further exploration into the amount of workload that is added for the student and the teacher would be beneficial. From a perspective of methodology, there are a few potential issues that may have adversely affected the outcomes presented here. Qualitative analysis including interviews and thematic analysis of stakeholders was conducted. The results list the positive feedback from parents and teachers with little in the way of criticism or feedback. The sample of ten students is typical of qualitative analysis; however, further research could include comparison groups using current "business as usual" interventions or comparisons against similar systems for visual organization. Despite these methodological issues, it is still likely that this tool could be of benefit for this complex population. Online Computing Reviews Service
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