Teaching Literacy Skills to French Minimally Verbal School-Aged Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders with the Serious Game SEMA-TIC: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Learning to read is very challenging for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), but also very important, as it can give them access to new knowledge. This is even more challenging in minimally verbal children, who do not have the verbal abilities to learn through usual methods. To address the learning of literacy skills in French minimally verbal school-aged children with ASD, we designed the serious game SEMA-TIC, which relies on non-verbal cognitive skills and uses specific learning strategies adapted to the features of autistic individuals. This study investigated the usability of SEMA-TIC (in terms of adaptability, efficiency, and effectiveness) for the acquisition of literacy skills in French minimally verbal school-aged children with ASD. Twenty-five children with ASD and no functional language participated in the study. Children in the training group received the SEMA-TIC training over 23 weeks (on average), while no intervention was provided to children in the non-training group. Results indicated that SEMA-TIC presents a suitable usability, as all participants were able to play (adaptability), to complete the training (efficiency) and to acquire significant literacy skills (effectiveness). Indeed, the literacy skills in the training group significantly improved after the training, as measured by specific experimental tasks (alphabet knowledge, word reading, word-non-word discrimination, sentence reading and word segmentation; all p ≤ 0.001) compared to the non-training group. More importantly, 3 out of 12 children of the training group could be considered as word decoders at the end of the intervention, whereas no children of the non-training group became able to decode words efficiently. The present study thus brings preliminary evidence that French minimally verbal school-aged children with ASD are able to learn literacy skills through SEMA-TIC, a specific computerized intervention consisting in a serious game based on non-verbal cognitive skills.

Games na terapia de linguagem em crianças com TEA: uma interface com a crise sanitária

“…Foi constatada uma melhora significativa na leitura. O artigo traz a importância dessa habilidade na qualidade de vida em geral do indivíduo com TEA 28 .…”

A preliminary investigation assessing the basic digital capabilities of minimally verbal children on the autism spectrum with intellectual disability

“…Accessing features such as the camera or volume control were only achieved by one participant. Serret et al (2017) propose that relative visual-spatial strengths in this population can be developed to address challenges associated with being minimally verbal. This study suggests that the visual-spatial skills of touching specific areas of the screen and swiping (slide action) are capabilities that should be built upon for this purpose.…”

“…Verbal children with ASD can have a propensity to engage with digital technology (Frauenberger, 2015; Mazurek et al , 2012), and this affinity may extend to those who are minimally verbal with ID. The autistic mind has also been characterised as having relative strengths in areas related to technology (Baron-Cohen, 2012), which again may extend to minimally verbal children with ASD and ID and needs to be explored through future research (Serret et al , 2017). There have been calls for the autism community to be actively engaged within the research process (Fletcher-Watson et al , 2019a, 2019b; Parsons et al , 2019), and this research suggests that including those who also have ID and are minimally verbal has potential for co-developing digital interventions and support.…”

“…Individuals with ID mostly used digital devices for recreation (78%) as, within schools, students with ID are often unable to use educational technologies as very few devices have been designed to ensure access and utilisation for this population (Ayres et al , 2013; Palmer et al , 2012; Wehmeyer et al , 2004, 2008). Teaching those with ASD and ID who are minimally verbal presents additional challenges as they do not have the verbal abilities to learn through usual methods (McIlvane et al , 2016; Serret et al , 2017). Serret et al propose that such challenges can be overcome by using digital technology to support relative visual-spatial strengths in minimally verbal children with ASD’s learning.…”

The Promise of Comprehensive Early Reading Instruction for Children With Autism and Recommendations for Future Directions

“…A recent study by Serret et al (2017) used a gamebased approach to improve French reading skills in minimally verbal school-aged children with autism. The serious game, SEMA-TIC, incorporates 100 words and 50 sentences that include these words.…”