AINIDIU, CANDI, HELPMI: ICTs of a personal experience

This paper presents an overall picture of the current situation of children with special educational needs (SEN) in Ecuador and the development of software adapted to our environment as response to a personal experience of the author. The paper identifies the typical problems and barriers that parents of children with special educational needs must overcome in order to achieve social integration. On the other hand, the paper provides evidence of the methodology used in determining the requirements and software features. It also summarizes the essence of depth interviews with experts in some public and private institutions of disabilities in the city of Quito. The paper also explains the software designed for children with special educational needs, the first is AINIDIU (Agente Inteligente para Niños con Discapacidad Visual) that has the ability to interact with a blind child through a voice synthesizer and screen reader. HELPMI (Herramienta que Emula un Lenguaje de Palabras mediante Imágenes) is a software for mobile devices or smart phones to support speech therapists and children with language impairments. Finally, the web platform CANDI (Centro de Apoyo a Niños Diferentes - http://www.candi-uti.com) where resources, information and training programs for parents of SEN children are centralized. The principal implication of these technologies is to make that the SEN children develop cognitive skills to make their integration easier within their familiar and educational environment.