Abstract
Students with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulties in social interaction and communication, social skills and acquisition of knowledge. Individuals affected by low-functioning autism are not able to manage the level of abstraction that the use of language requires. Besides, in the most severe cases they have problems in recognizing representations of objects from the real world. In order to intervene in these aspects, it is necessary to facilitate the learning of the processes of the acquisition of meaning, associating the meanings to signifiers at the visual and verbal levels. We have designed a computer-assisted tool called SIGUEME to enhance the development of the perceptive-visual process and the cognitive-visual process. We have performed a pilot study of the use of SIGUEME by 125 children from Spain, including an evaluation based on pre/post testing. This study suggests significant improvements in children’s attention span.
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Acknowledgements
This project has been funded with support from the Regional Excellence Project TIC-6600 and Orange Foundation, in Spain. We want to thank them and also the schools that collaborated in the study, their professionals and students.
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Almendros, M.L.R., Cuevas, M.C., Domínguez, C.R., López, T.R., Bermúdez-Edo, M., Fórtiz, M.J.R. (2016). A Tool to Improve Visual Attention and the Acquisition of Meaning for Low-Functioning People. In: Miesenberger, K., Bühler, C., Penaz, P. (eds) Computers Helping People with Special Needs. ICCHP 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9759. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41267-2_32
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41267-2_32
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