Social stories is a widely used intervention for children on the autism spectrum, particularly within an educational context. To date, systematic reviews and meta analyses of the research evaluating social stories has produced mixed results, often due to a lack of methodological rigour and variability in the development and delivery of the social stories. To address the gap in methodological rigour, a pilot Randomised Control Trial (RCT) was conducted, incorporating a social stories intervention group (n = 9 children on the autism spectrum) and an attentional control group who received a poem (n = 6 children on the autism spectrum) using a digital platform to address variability. Digitally-mediated social stories were found to be effective in producing beneficial changes in behaviour outcomes, which were sustained at a six-week follow up.
Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) tend to have an affinity for digital technologies, often preferring computer-assisted learning to human-assisted learning. Many children with ASD are also diagnosed with Intellectual Disabilities (ID), yet design studies involving children with ASD and ID are scarce. Rewards can have a positive impact on children's learning and motivation, but little is known about the nature and impact of rewards for children with ASD, and/or ID. Digital technologies are well placed to provide task-based rewards, and in combination with a better understanding of the reward preferences of children with ASD and/or ID this has significant potential to enhance learning. This paper presents two robust participatory design (PD) studies involving children with: i) ASD; ii) ID; and iii) both ASD and ID. The studies aimed to identify: i) the reward preferences of children with ASD and/or ID (RQ1) and ii) how rewards might develop throughout a task as the child progresses (RQ2). Results revealed a number of reward categories that were common to all children, as well as children's preferences for how rewards could develop as they progress through computer-based tasks, for the first time. Original implications for designing computer-based rewards embedded within digital intervention/educational technologies for children with ASD and/or ID, are discussed.
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