[ToDo application for autistic children]
Autism is a functional disorder of a brain characterized by impaired social interaction, disorder of communication, and obsession for the area of behavior and interests.
Because of the disorder of social interaction, many autistic children tend not to have the concept of time management.
So it is very difficult for them to understand what they need to do as daily tasks.
We tried to develop a new schedule application for autistic children by using the methods and technologies we had obtained in the study of the communication support application.
This new schedule application, "Smiley", will give a user opportunity to feel sense of accomplishment and an incentive to do.
With "Smiley", a user can make schedules and show them easily with pictures, voice and titles by using the functions of smart phones.
[Token Economy Method]
The conventional teaching method for mentally retarded children is not effective for autistic children. We adopted several important factors of the teaching method for autistic children.
To motivate oneself by expecting fun or happy things is the most important factor of this study.
This means to understand he/she will be praised if he/she will do right things and to sweep away anxiety by success experiences.We used Token Economy Method to raise this attitude. Token Economy Method aims to raise a motivation to a suitable behavior by giving a token whenever a child does a correct thing.
If he/she gains certain numbers of tokens, he/she can exchange them to a prize (a backup factor).
This method fits in our daily lives and many fields of special support education adopt it positively.
On "Smiley", an autistic child gets a smiley mark whenever he/she is done a task. When he/she corrects smiley marks for all tasks he/she needs to do, "Prize" screen with a picture and sound will be shown.
It is easy to change prizes or to edit tasks, so a user can modify them according with the ability and the growth process of an autistic child.