An interactive E-book with an educational game for children with developmental disorders: A pilot user study

Children diagnosed with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), as one of the most complex neurodevelopmental disabilities, are characterized by different brain and functioning development, distinct interaction with the environment and different learning patterns, language and social skills impairments, and repetitive auto-stimulating restricting behaviors. It has been shown that computer-assisted intervention is much more attention captivating and interesting to children compared with a classic approach to teaching, allowing for faster acquisition of skills. This makes these tools and the technology highly suitable for teaching children with autism basic developmental skills. In addition, interactive electronic books showed positive outcomes for comprehension and information acquisition in children with ASD, while decreasing inappropriate children behavior in the classroom. In this paper a pilot user study on an e-book with an embedded educational game for children with developmental disorders was presented. The results show that the e-book can be efficiently used for teaching children with ASD basic developmental skills and that the learned skills can be efficiently transfered to new media and environments. The framework will provide preschool children with and without disabilities with appropriate educational software, to build up their early cognitive abilities and school readiness skills, and promote incorporating technology as part of the educational and pedagogical process in schools.