PlanTEA: Supporting Planning and Anticipation for Children with ASD Attending Medical Appointments

Abstract

In people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), skills related to anticipation and mental flexibility are often impaired, so their thinking tends to be very rigid and their behavior is based on establishing routines. For this reason, children with ASD may show disruptive behaviors when faced with disturbing but necessary activities, such as going to a doctor’s appointment. Therefore, it is very convenient and necessary for their families to prepare in advance for the visit and to explain the details of the procedure to be performed at the consultation. The use of anticipation boards in these situations allows to prepare such situations and to reduce stress for both the ASD child and their families or caregivers. In this context, the use of technology can provide great benefits for anticipating a new event, or whatever risks the control of their routines, as well as enhancing developmental skills such as communication, autonomy, social interaction, etc. This article describes a software tool, for mobile devices such as tablets, that allows the planning of the attendance of children with ASD to the necessary medical appointments throughout their childhood and adolescence, as well as communication with specialists. This app, named PlanTEA, has undergone a preliminary evaluation that has yielded very positive results. Most participants found the app useful in helping to anticipate (94.1%) and improve communication (94.2%) for people with ASD in medical contexts, considered it easy to use, with no technical support needed to use it (almost 100%), and would recommend its use (94.2%). This first evaluation has also allowed us to define the next steps to be taken to improve and enhance this tool and thus reach a wider population within the autistic disorder. As a result of the evaluation carried out and the comments received, it is proposed to extend its use to adult users and those with high-functioning autism, which supposes expanding and extending the functionalities of the current version of PlanTEA.

Gamified Environments and Serious Games for Students With Autistic Spectrum Disorder: Review of Research

“…Dantas and Nascimento ( 2022 ) create a gamified environment that encourages the recognition and expression of basic emotions. Hernández et al ( 2022 ) create the PlanTEA software, which allows planning medical appointments and communicating with specialists based on gamified activities. Finally, Elshahawy et al ( 2022a ) design and evaluate different gamified platforms to encourage problem solving using basic programming.…”

Academic Coverage of Social Stressors Experienced by Disabled People: A Scoping Review

“…As to the 52 relevant ones, the following phrases were used to cover ADHD or autism: women with autistic traits [155]; autistic adolescence [156]; autistic student [157]; ADHD student [158]; adults who present ADHD symptoms [159]; autistic young adults [160]; children with autistic disorder [161]; children with autism spectrum disorder [162]; younger, middle, and older autistic adults [163], individual who has ADHD [164]; clients with autism [165]; children or youth with autism spectrum disorder [166][167][168]; children with autism [169]; children with autism and other developmental disabilities [170]; persons with autism and other developmental disabilities [171]; people with autism spectrum disorder [172]; youth autism spectrum disorder [173]; intellectually able adults with autism spectrum disorder [174,175]; and children with severe autism and related developmental disabilities [176]. Neurodiverse was not mentioned once as a term.…”

“…As to the origin of the stressor, the disability being the stressor was flagged in 14 abstracts [159,161,164,166,170,174,177,187,193,195,199,203,205,206], the social environment being the stressor in 17 abstracts [4,155,156,163,164,[178][179][180][181][182]186,188,189,192,[196][197][198], and the environment and the disability as stressors in four [168,172,190,191]. In 14 abstracts, it is not clear whether the stress was seen to be caused by the disability or the social environment or both [157,158,160,162,164,165,167,169,173,175,183,185,…”

“…Four studies flagged the environment and the disability as stressors [168,172,190,191], such as one study measuring disability-related stress in wheelchair users using the disability stress scale, which found "4 main factors of disability-related stress: access accounted for 33.7% of the variance, physical for 8.4% of the variance, social for 7.9% of the variance, and burden of care for 7.2% of the variance" [191] (p. 1260). Another listed the following stressors: "children with autism spectrum disorder experienced stressors of daily living, which included environmental stimuli, academic and behavioral expectations, deviations in routine, behavioral expectations, and emotional control, and stressors of socializing, which included bullying, communication, personal interactions, conflict resolution, and difficulty understanding others' emotions", and then indicated the cause was the disability and environment when stating "Stressors resulted from the core symptoms and characteristic behaviors of autism spectrum disorders, and also Taiwanese cultural expectations" [168] (p. 206).…”

“…Within these 52 abstracts, the 'disability' was identified in 14 abstracts as the stressor [159,161,164,166,170,174,177,187,193,195,199,203,205,206] and the social environment in 17 abstracts [4,155,156,163,164,[178][179][180][181][182]186,188,189,192,[196][197][198]. Four studies flagged the social environment and the 'disability' as stressors [168,172,190,191]. In 14 abstracts, it is not clear whether the disability or the social environment or both were seen as the origin of the stressor [157,158,160,162,164,165,167,169,173,175,183,185,…”