Using Tablet Applications for Children With Autism to Increase Their Cognitive and Social Skills

Abstract

Several researchers along with technicians have been developing software and hardware to support and/or replace the standard method of teaching for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) and/or other developmental disabilities. Moreover, computer-based intervention and electronic tablets have shown benefits for people with special needs increasing their independence, academic and cognitive skills, social communication, and leisure time. Therefore, the aim of the current study is to evaluate the effectiveness of three tablet applications created to enhance specific abilities of children with ASD (attention, vocabulary, and imitation), who followed applied behavior analysis treatment (ABA) compared with the internal control group (CG). Training lasted 4 weeks for 15 children selected in a randomized way, while the CG followed only the behavioral therapy. To sum up, we want to respond to three questions: (1) whether the experimental group (EG) using the applications obtains greater progress within standard therapy in comparison to the CG, (2) whether the real skills of children examined at baseline have an impact on the application scores, and (3) whether the graphic features of the applications influence the motivation of children during training. At postintervention assessment, the EG showed higher progress within standard therapy than the internal CG even though these differences didn’t overreach the significance level. However, the probability of making progress in mastered targets at postintervention assessment was higher for the EG than the CG. To conclude, the current study demonstrates the capability of tablet applications to reproduce effective educational training for children with autism.