Developing a Software That Supports theImprovement of the Theory of Mind in ChildrenWith Autism Spectrum Disorder

• Muñoz, Roberto
• Morales, C.
• Villarroel, R.
• Quezada, A.
• de Albuquerque, V. H. C

Abstract:

The autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopment disorder that affects areas relatedto social skills, such as social interaction, communication, planning everyday activities, imagination, andcreativity, in a permanent way and since early ages. These skills are very important for everyday routine andshould be developed to improve the life quality and integrate people with such disorders in the workplace.Nowadays, there are several applications that were developed to support children with ASD. However,most of those applications were developed in other languages or are aimed at different social contexts.Some of them are simply outdated. Due to the mentioned factors, an application for mobile devices wasdeveloped, aimed at supporting professionals that intend to develop skills related to empathy based onthe mind theory, in children diagnosed with ASD. In the tests with experts, it was possible to obtain anadequate application both in terms of content and usability for them, allowing the user to feel comfortablewith the application and that this can be integrated into their activities without problems. Using the usabilitytests, the results show that both the users managed to complete the tasks with some time differences. Theapplication was validated by performing several tests with experts and final users with promising results.

Year:

2019

Type of Publication:

Article

Keywords:

autism spectrum disorders; mobile application; special needs; theory of mind; usability; educarion

Journal:

IEEE Access

Month:

Enero

DOI:

10.1109/ACCESS.2018.289022