Promoção do Interesse em Criança com Autismo a partir de uma Plataforma Educacional Assistiva com Fantoche Eletrônico

A tecnologia, na sua evolução e transformação, influencia novos desdobramentos da técnica, dos processos e de aplicações, não somente na indústria, mas, também, em processos sociais e culturais. Salienta-se o uso de Tecnologia de Informação e Comunicação na Educação, Engenharia e de modelos da Computação Afetiva como recurso de ação mediadora para promoção do ser humano social. Neste contexto, a presente Tese desenvolveu, à luz da Teoria Sócio-Histórica, uma Plataforma Educacional Assistiva capaz de possibilitar a promoção do estado afetivo de interesse em crianças com Transtorno do Espectro Autista (TEA) dos anos iniciais do Ensino Fundamental. O TEA leva a uma condição de déficit no desenvolvimento, em escala de manifestação, nos domínios comportamental, comunicativo e ou cognitivo. O déficit de “atenção conjunta”, de reciprocidade emocional, de interesse, e prejuízo qualitativo na comunicação verbal e não verbal são características mencionadas largamente na literatura. Para “compensar” esse gap, o professor (assim como pais e terapeutas) precisa enfrentar o desafio de projetar estratégias de interação que possam promover cenas de atenção conjunta. Além disso, segundo dados do censo de educação básica de 2015, das quase 8 milhões de matrículas na Educação Infantil, cerca de 900 mil são para Educação Especial, sendo 700 mil no Ensino Fundamental e o preocupante afunilamento para 30 mil no 1º ano do Ensino Médio. Esses números reafirmam a importância da inclusão social e acredita-se que este decréscimo esteja relacionado à necessidade de um apoio tecnológico contextualizado nas atividades comunicativas e de atenção conjunta. A metodologia de pesquisa é de natureza qualitativa, e utilizou o método de estudo de caso, de múltiplos casos. A atividade educativa foi desenvolvida por meio da contação de história infantil e uso de recurso tecnológico, dispositivo robótico, de ação mediadora, denominado de Fantoche Eletrônico, especialmente projetado para esta investigação. A práxis teve como base sociocognitiva as três etapas de intenção comunicativa da aquisição da linguagem proposta por Tomasello e de indicadores para a análise do estado afetivo de interesse. Os dados foram coletados por meio de instrumentos de entrevistas e observação sob a contação de quatro histórias infantil para quatro estudantes com autismo do 7º e 8º anos do ensino fundamental, totalizando 16 casos. Os resultados demonstraram que o uso do Fantoche Eletrônico promoveu mais de 80% de cenas de atenção conjunta, e um aumento, de três casos positivos com fantoche não eletrônico para quase 10 com o Fantoche Eletrônico, representado um ganho de mais de 200%. Além disso, 83% dos casos apresentaram indicativo positivo de estado afetivo de interesse. A Plataforma Educacional Assistiva foi denominada de Asistranto, assistência em Esperanto, e se mostrou adequada para o desenvolvimento de diferentes atividades acadêmicas com o objetivo de incluir estudantes com autismo em espaços escolares.Technology, in its evolution and transformation, influences new developments in the techniques, processes and applications, not only in industry, but also in social and cultural processes. The use of Information Technology and Communication in Education, Engineering and Affective Computing models as a resource of mediating action to promote the social human being. In this context, the present developed, in the light of Socio-Historical Theory, an Assistive Educational Platform capable of to promote the affective state of interest in children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder(ASD) of the initial years of Elementary School. The ASD leads to a condition of development, demonstration scale, behavioral, communicative and or cognitive. The deficit of "joint attention", emotional reciprocity, of interest, and qualitative impairment in verbal and non-verbal communication verbal characteristics are widely mentioned in the literature. To "compensate" this gap, the teacher (as well as parents and therapists) must face the challenge of designing interaction strategies that can promote scenes of joint attention. Besides that, according to data from the 2015 basic education census, of the almost 8 million enrollments in the Education, about 900 thousand are for Special Education, of which 700 thousand are Elementary School and the worrying bottleneck for 30 thousand in the first year of high school. Those reaffirm the importance of social inclusion and it is believed that this related to the need for technological support contextualized in the activities communicative and joint attention. The research methodology is qualitative in nature, and used multiple cases study technique. The educational activity was developed through the account of children's history and the use of technological resources, device robotic, of mediating action, denominated of Electronic Puppet, specially designed for this research. The praxis was based on sociocognitive three stages of communicative intention of language acquisition proposed by Tomasello and of indicators for the analysis of the affective state of interest. The data were collected by medium of instruments of interviews and observation under the account of four children's stories for four students with autism in the 7th and 8th years of elementary school, totaling 16 cases. The results showed that the use of the Electronic Puppet promoted more than 80% of scenes of joint attention, and an increase, of three positive cases with non-electronic puppet for almost 10 with the Electronic Puppet, represented a gain of over 200%. In addition, 83% of the cases presented positive indicative affective status of interest. The Assistive Educational Platform was denominated Asistranto, assistance in Esperanto, and proved adequate for the development of different activities with the aim of including students with autism in school settings

Nutzerzentrierte Gestaltung für Menschen mit kognitiver Beeinträchtigung

Ein grosser Bevölkerungsanteil lebt mit einer kognitiven Beeinträchtigung. Die betroffenen Personen begegnen aufgrund ihrer funktionalen Einschränkungen bei der Nutzung von Informationstechnologien Herausforderungen, die sie gegebenenfalls an der gesellschaftlichen Partizipation hindern. Eine Berücksichtigung dieser Nutzergruppe bei der Technologiegestaltung und -entwicklung ist deshalb zwingend notwendig, findet jedoch in der Praxis kaum statt. Etablierte Methoden der nutzerzentrierten Gestaltung zielen auf Menschen mit durchschnittlichen Eigenschaften ab. Einige Studien und Projekte wurden bereits durchgeführt, jedoch fehlt es an einem strukturierten Überblick sowie an Ansätzen, wie die nutzerzentrierte Gestaltung für Menschen mit kognitiver Beeinträchtigung eingesetzt und adaptiert werden kann. Die Ergebnisse der Analyse der Projekte und Studien des Fachbereichs sind ernüchternd. Zwar ziehen einige Studien Menschen mit kognitiver Beeinträchtigung explizit in den Designprozess mit ein, doch wird kaum über das Vorgehen oder nötige Anpassungen reflektiert. Durch die Vielfalt der Menschen mit kognitiver Beeinträchtigung können zwar einige Empfehlungen für die Einbeziehung formuliert werden, diese zu generalisieren und auf andere Projekte zu übertragen, stellt jedoch eine Herausforderung dar. Daher wird ein standardisiertes Framework für das Teilen von Erkenntnissen aus durchgeführten Projekten gefordert. Es müssen geeignete Methoden gefunden werden, wenn kognitiv beeinträchtige Menschen miteinbezogen werden sollen – insbesondere dann, wenn zusätzlich weitere Nutzergruppen mit abweichender Beeinträchtigung involviert sind. Die Problematik hängt jedoch nicht nur von der Forschung ab und so bleibt in Zukunft die Übertragung der Erkenntnisse in die Praxis eine der grössten Herausforderungen

Development of a Robot-Based Environment for Training Children with Autism

This study is done as a part of design-research processes that aims to co-create technology supported robot centered therapy environment for autistic children. We attempt to evaluate to which extent the therapists who perform behavioral training of children with autism can be supported by robot technology in the process of therapy content creation and training. First, we feature a robot-centered environment that is technically designed to decrease the complexity of programming dynamic, synchronous and parallel interactive robot behavior to a level compatible with content creation. Afterwards, we apply the Cognitive Dimensions Framework (CDF) approach for evaluation of the usability of this environment that is employed to control a robot interacting with children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). A pilot test with therapists of two clinics followed by a test with adolescents with autism was performed. Participants in the pilot test performed tasks according to the different types of user activity in the CDF, and answered a questionnaire corresponding with the different dimensions. The results show negative attitude towards one particular dimension, but also high scores in other dimensions. As an additional validation of the usability of the environment, 9 adolescents with ASD could also create robot scenarios. We interpret these results as follows. In general, the therapists and autistic adolescents could program relatively simple behavioral scenarios with robots. However, we need to further explore whether assembling and executing of more complex robot scenarios such as programming of dynamic real-life behaviors and task scheduling is possible by end-users

Development of a robot-based environment for training children with autism

\u3cp\u3eThis study is done as a part of design-research processes that aims to co-create technology supported robot centered therapy environment for autistic children. We attempt to evaluate to which extent the therapists who perform behavioral training of children with autism can be supported by robot technology in the process of therapy content creation and training. First, we feature a robot-centered environment that is technically designed to decrease the complexity of programming dynamic, synchronous and parallel interactive robot behavior to a level compatible with content creation. Afterwards, we apply the Cognitive Dimensions Framework (CDF) approach for evaluation of the usability of this environment that is employed to control a robot interacting with children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). A pilot test with therapists of two clinics followed by a test with adolescents with autism was performed. Participants in the pilot test performed tasks according to the different types of user activity in the CDF, and answered a questionnaire corresponding with the different dimensions. The results show negative attitude towards one particular dimension, but also high scores in other dimensions. As an additional validation of the usability of the environment, 9 adolescents with ASD could also create robot scenarios. We interpret these results as follows. In general, the therapists and autistic adolescents could program relatively simple behavioral scenarios with robots. However, we need to further explore whether assembling and executing of more complex robot scenarios such as programming of dynamic real-life behaviors and task scheduling is possible by end-users.\u3c/p\u3