An App-Based Authoring System for Personalized Sensory Stimulation of Children With Developmental Disabilities

Children with developmental disabilities typically have sensory processing disorders, which may result in considerable discomfort. Sensory stimulation therapy is the most common remedy, but the development of therapy content is challenging because each individual has unique sensory problems and personal characteristics. To provide personalized content, we propose a new app-based authoring system, in which various functionalities provided by different apps can be dynamically combined and reconfigured. Specifically, we develop: 1) an authoring app, which allows authors to reconfigure the functionality of different apps using parameters; 2) an execution app, which dynamically runs various components in different apps; and 3) app packages to stimulate sensory systems, for which a library is provided to support effective app development on our platform. To stimulate the multi-sensory systems of children with developmental disabilities, several items of content were developed with guidance from special education teachers. User studies reveal that the proposed scheme is effective for the development of personalized educational content, thus helping sensory stimulation therapy.