Development of Educational Software for Teaching Daily Life Skills to Students in the Spectrum of Autism

Abstract

This paper describes an educational software that is currently under development, aiming to enhance the social skills of children in the spectrum of autism. The learning scenarios involve authentic tasks designed to assist students with autism with their daily living skills (such as preparing a shopping list, making payments, etc). This work draws on previous research which acknowledges the beneficial role of computer-assisted instruction and structured teaching for the education of students with autism. The development of the software adopts the principles of user-centred design (e.g. following an iterative design approach) and specific emphasis is given to the usability of the user interface. Preliminary results through expert-based evaluation have provided very positive comments for the learning effectiveness and the usability of the educational software.