Designing accessible visual programming tools for children with autism spectrum condition

Abstract

Visual programming tools allow users to create interactive media projects such as games and animations using visual representations of programming concepts. Although these tools have been shown to have huge potential for teaching children, research has shown that they may not be accessible for children with cognitive impairments, including those with autism spectrum condition. Therefore, this study proposes a set of recommendations for the design of accessible visual programming tools for children with autism spectrum condition. Semi-structured interviews with experts ($$n=7$$ n = 7 ) were conducted and thematically analysed to identify initial recommendations. A second set of semi-structured interviews with a subset of the initial experts ($$n=3$$ n = 3 ) were then conducted to validate and produce a final set of recommendations.

Web Technologies in the Development of Computational Thinking of Students with Mental Disabilities

“…Our results are confirmed by studies of the development of CT in the process of learning computer science in people with autism spectrum [4], [7], [36], [51], and in children with Down syndrome [18].…”

“…In several studies [2], [48]- [51], the design of an online service or application affects the speed of task completion and motivation. The important aspect here is timely feedback [30], [33], [35], and the use of reinforcements [15], [24].…”

Mobile visual media design based on artificial intelligence and augmented reality technology

“…This digital visual information plays an increasingly prominent role in enriching people's lives, work, education, and entertainment. The earliest methods of understanding visual information were based on manual annotation methods, which had the disadvantage of being subjective and labor-intensive; different people interpreted different visual information differently [13][14][15][16][17][18].…”