CT4All: Enhancing Computational Thinking Skills in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Computational Thinking (CT) has been identified in the last few years as a fundamental skill that should be developed by all people. This has motivated multiple initiatives, whether governmental, through organizations, or by individuals. However, upon realizing a literature review, to the best of our knowledge no initiatives that include minority groups such as those within the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) were proposed. Furthermore, in this context there are no guidelines to orientate the creation of didactic activities that will bring about the benefits of CT. Due to the aforementioned information, in this article we present the definition of a collection of guidelines for the construction of didactic activities (CT4AII) that aim to promote Computational Thinking in adolescents with ASD through the construction of digital games. The proposed guidelines were instantiated in a Digital Games Programming Workshop with Scratch. The workshop was offered to four adolescents with ASD, obtaining the development of high-level CT skills and stimulating interpersonal skills that are diminished in this public. Furthermore, a posttest was executed 5 months later, with the objective of determining if the developed skills had been maintained over time. The results evidenced that the skills were in fact maintained in a sustained manner, demonstrating promising results.