research-article

MyCalendar: Fostering Communication for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder through Photos and Videos

Authors:

Muhammad Haziq Lim Abdullah,

Margot BreretonAuthors Info & Claims

OzCHI '15: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Australian Special Interest Group for Computer Human Interaction

Pages 1 - 9

https://doi.org/10.1145/2838739.2838785

Published: 07 December 2015 Publication History

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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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Williams RPark C(2023)Cyborg Assemblages: How autistic adults construct sociotechnical networks to support cognitive functionProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581556(1-15)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544548.3581556
Hijab MBanire BNeves JQaraqe MOthman AAl-Thani D(2023)Co-design of Technology Involving Autistic Children: A Systematic Literature ReviewInternational Journal of Human–Computer Interaction10.1080/10447318.2023.226624840:22(7498-7516)Online publication date: 12-Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2023.2266248
Lyu CChen HXu TPeng XHuang FWang H(2023)DailyConnect: Piloting Interventions of Situation-Based Emotional Understanding in Naturalistic Home Settings for Children with Autism Spectrum DisorderInternational Journal of Human–Computer Interaction10.1080/10447318.2023.221995840:17(4647-4660)Online publication date: 8-Jun-2023
https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2023.2219958
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MyCalendar: Fostering Communication for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder through Photos and Videos

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Reviews

Reviewer: 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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Published In

OzCHI '15: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Australian Special Interest Group for Computer Human Interaction

December 2015

691 pages

ISBN:9781450336734

DOI:10.1145/2838739

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

In-Cooperation

SIGCHI: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction
HFESA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Australia Inc.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 07 December 2015

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OzCHI '15

OzCHI '15: The Annual Meeting of the Australian Special Interest Group for Computer Human Interaction

December 7 - 10, 2015

VIC, Parkville, Australia

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OzCHI '15 Paper Acceptance Rate 47 of 97 submissions, 48%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 362 of 729 submissions, 50%

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Cited By

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Williams RPark C(2023)Cyborg Assemblages: How autistic adults construct sociotechnical networks to support cognitive functionProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581556(1-15)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544548.3581556
Hijab MBanire BNeves JQaraqe MOthman AAl-Thani D(2023)Co-design of Technology Involving Autistic Children: A Systematic Literature ReviewInternational Journal of Human–Computer Interaction10.1080/10447318.2023.226624840:22(7498-7516)Online publication date: 12-Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2023.2266248
Lyu CChen HXu TPeng XHuang FWang H(2023)DailyConnect: Piloting Interventions of Situation-Based Emotional Understanding in Naturalistic Home Settings for Children with Autism Spectrum DisorderInternational Journal of Human–Computer Interaction10.1080/10447318.2023.221995840:17(4647-4660)Online publication date: 8-Jun-2023
https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2023.2219958
Sharma SAchary KKinnula MNorouzi BKinnula HIivari NVentä-Olkkonen LHolappa J(2022)To Empower or Provoke? Exploring approaches for participatory design at schools for neurodiverse individuals in IndiaInternational Journal of Child-Computer Interaction10.1016/j.ijcci.2022.10052134(100521)Online publication date: Dec-2022
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Lyu CChen HPeng XXu TWang H(2021)DailyConnect: A Mobile Aid that Assists the Understanding of Situation-based Emotions for Children with ASDsExtended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3411763.3451578(1-6)Online publication date: 8-May-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3411763.3451578
Tuhkala A(2021)A systematic literature review of participatory design studies involving teachersEuropean Journal of Education10.1111/ejed.1247156:4(641-659)Online publication date: 5-Oct-2021
https://doi.org/10.1111/ejed.12471
Koumpouros YToulias TMakedon F(2020)User centered design and assessment of a wearable application for children with autistic spectrum disorder supporting daily activitiesProceedings of the 13th ACM International Conference on PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments10.1145/3389189.3398002(1-9)Online publication date: 30-Jun-2020
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Spiel KFrauenberger CKeyes OFitzpatrick G(2019)Agency of Autistic Children in Technology Research—A Critical Literature ReviewACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/334491926:6(1-40)Online publication date: 2-Nov-2019
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Sharmin MHossain MSaha ADas MMaxwell MAhmed SMandryk RHancock MPerry MCox A(2018)From Research to PracticeProceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3173574.3173676(1-16)Online publication date: 21-Apr-2018
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Reviews

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