Autism is the fastest-growing developmental disability with a 10-17% annual growth rate. According to the Autism Society of America there are 1-1.5 million Americans with autism. Individuals with this disability vary greatly in prognosis. In order to develop skills for independence such as purchasing items, using public transportation, and eating in a restaurant, school systems and families often use community based instruction. Costs associated with educating people in real world environments include travel, low student to teacher ratio, and trips to multiple locations to promote generalization of skills. In order to learn the sequence of small steps that make up the larger skill, 1:1 instruction is often necessary. This is costly and time consuming for systems already struggling to fund programs. As the population of children with autism grows, so does the need for community based instruction. Technology provides a way to bring the real world to the classroom without the traditional expense or risk. Video instruction has shown positive results for teaching students with autism a variety of skills. Combining video clips with a first person point of view training simulation which allows the user to move the character's hands is an innovative and inexpensive way to increase opportunities for instruction while providing correction procedures, giving multiple exemplars, monitoring progress, and including clips from each student's community. The long-term goal of this project is to provide a well researched, easy to use; community skills focused training simulation which brings real world experiences and treatment into the classroom and home. According to this PA, "Ultimately, the goal of this program is to improve the physical and/or mental function of individuals with disabilities through new technologies, delivery systems, and/or training techniques." This innovative game meets this goal. In this Phase I SBIR project, Sandbox Learning Company will create a prototype of a training simulation for instructing three community based skills. A team including therapists, educators, parents, end-users, and a game developer will collaborate to design the prototype. The team collectively has over 20 years experience working with children with autism and extensive experience creating educational video games. Usability and skill development will be examined to evaluate feasibility of the program with a small sample of children with autism. Social relevance to parents and professionals will be examined with a survey. This Phase I feasibility study will provide the foundation for Phase II evaluation of outcomes across a greater number of skills and participants.
Thesaurus Terms: autism, child mental disorder, computer system design /evaluation, functional ability, interactive multimedia, training adolescence (12-20), behavioral /social science research tag, clinical research, focus group, human subject, middle childhood (6-11)
