Development and Study of Support Applications for Autistic Children

Abstract

We developed a new VOCA (Voice Output Communication Aid) application for personal digital assistant (PDA), “Let's Talk!” for autistic children. This application has many particular advantages comparing to existing VOCA. We especially focused on an easy and simple manipulation. By tapping a symbol on a screen of a PDA with this application, a user can show his/her thoughts with pictures and sounds to others easily. There are 2 modes that can be switched depending on different situations of users. It has 120 symbols based on daily life and a user can also create the original page with new icons made by pictures or sound. A user also can customize an original page by arranging icons he made or existing symbols. On the newest version of this application, we added Task Schedule System to stimulate motivations of children to do something by them. On the last part of this study, we show some case studies. We introduced this application to students in a school for handicapped children and collected data.