Evaluation of a usability testing guide for mobile applications focused on people with Down syndrome (USATESTDOWN)

Usability testing of mobile applications involving people with Down syndrome is an issue that has not been comprehensively investigated. There is no single proposal that takes on board all the issues that could potentially be taken into account to deal with the specific needs of people with Down syndrome. We propose a guide for a usability testing process involving participants with Down syndrome. This guide is called USATESTDOWN. It is based on a literature review and experience gained at a number of workshops where people with Down syndrome used mobile devices. This paper briefly describes USATESTDOWN and its application at a special employment centre called PRODIS with 10 participants

Towards ai-based interactive game intervention to monitor concentration levels in children with attention deficit

—Preliminary results to a new approach for neurocognitive training on academic engagement and monitoring of attention levels in children with learning difficulties is presented. Machine Learning (ML) techniques and a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) are used to develop an interactive AI-based game for educational therapy to monitor the progress of children’s concentration levels during specific cognitive tasks. Our approach resorts to data acquisition of brainwaves of children using electroencephalography (EEG) to classify concentration levels through model calibration. The real-time brainwave patterns are inputs to our game interface to monitor concentration levels. When the concentration drops, the educational game can personalize to the user by changing the challenge of the training or providing some new visual or auditory stimuli to the user in order to reduce the attention loss. To understand concentration level patterns, we collected brainwave data from children at various primary schools in Brazil who have intellectual disabilities e.g. autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Preliminary results show that we successfully benchmarked (96%) the brainwave patterns acquired by using various classical ML techniques. The result obtained through the automatic classification of brainwaves will be fundamental to further develop our full approach. Positive feedback from questionnaires was obtained for both, the AI-based game and the engagement and motivation during the training sessions

Looking for a Subject - Art Therapy and Assessment in Autism

This research makes use of a case study methodology employing discourse analysis. It represents a reflection on the practice of art therapy assessment in a service which provides a diagnosis of children who present with Autistic Spectrum Disorders, that is, with social impairments, communication disorders, developmental delays and behavioural problems. An investigation of art production in assessment and an interest in the institution’s discourses, are pursued through the construction of case reports. Four subjects (children aged 4 years, 5 years 8 months, 7 years 7 months, and 11 years 5 months) are presented in three forms. Firstly as “documentary subjects” through an analysis of the clinic’s documents. Secondly as “ekphrastic subjects” – here the subjects are presented through a description and reproduction of the art work produced in the assessment, and thirdly as “discursive subjects”, presented through an analysis of speech and actions recorded on video. Emphasis has been given to the discursive construction of subjectivity and the relation between subjects and art production. The documentary subjects illustrate a story showing that difference disrupts and families seek a restoration of union through engagement with professionals. This story provides a frame which conditions the art therapy assessment and influences art production. A social and cultural understanding of the art production in the clinic, an interpretation that does not discover signs of pathology in the art work, shows that the art work and its intentionality is jointly produced through negotiations between the child and the therapist. The child is able to use art making to assess the situation and present a propositional self in an iconic form and art production also supports the generation of imaginary situations which enables the child to contest and explore power relations

A Frame Analysis Approach To Cross-Cultural Television Advertising

The role of visuals in advertising research is examined. An argument is developed to support a theory of frame analysis for cross-cultural television advertising.  Frame analysis is explained and commercials from Japan and the Dominican Republic are used to illustrate application of the theory. It is hoped that frame analysis will supplement content analysis as a methodological approach to cross-cultural television advertising

Reading Autistic Experience

Within the field of Disability Studies, research on cognitive and developmental disabilities is relatively rare in comparison to other types of disabilities. Using Clifford Geertz\u27s anthropological approach, thick description, autism can be better understood by placing both fiction and non-fiction accounts of the disorder into a larger theoretical context. Applying concepts from existing works in Disability Studies to the major writings of Jacques Derrida, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan, and Donna Haraway also proves to be mutually enlightening. This ethnographic approach within the context of analysis of literary texts provides a model by which representations of individuals who are cognitively or developmentally disabled can be included in the academy

Children's Gestures from 18 to 30 Months

This thesis concerns the nature of the gestures performed by five Swedish children. The children are followed from 18 to 30 months of age: an age range which is characterized by a rapid succession of developmental changes in children's abilities to communicate by means of both spoken language and gesture. There are few studies of gesture in children of these ages, making it essential to ask a number of basic questions: What sort of gestural actions do the children perform? How does the use of gesture change over time, from 18 to 30 months of age? How are the gestures performed in coordination with speech? The answers provided to these questions are both quantitative and qualitative in kind. Several transitions in the use of gesture are identified, relating to developmental changes in the organization of speech — highlighting the symbiotic relationship between gesture and speech in the communicative ecology. Considerable attention is paid to the even more basic question of what sort of actions qualify for the label "gesture". Instead of treating gestural qualities as a matter of a binary distinction between actions counting as gesture and those that do not, a multi-level approach is advocated. This approach allows for descriptions of gestures in terms of several different levels of complexity. Furthermore, a distinction is made between levels of communicative explicitness on the one hand, and levels of semiotic complexity on the other. This distinction allows for the recognition that some gestural actions are semiotically complex, without being explicitly communicative, and vice versa: that some gestural actions are explicitly communicative, without being semiotically complex. The latter is particularly consequential for this thesis, since a large number of communicative gestural actions reside in the borderland between practical action and expressive gesture. Hence, the gestures analyzed include not only the prototypical "empty-handed" gestures, but also gestures that involve handling of physical objects. Overall, the role of conventionality in children's gestures is underscored. The approach is (a) cognitive in the sense that it pays attention to the knowledge and bodily skills involved in the performance of the gestures, (b) social and interactive in the sense that it views gestures as visible and accountable parts of mutually organized social activities, and (c) semiotic in the sense that the analysis tries to explicate how signification is brought about, in contrast to treating the meanings of gestures as transparently given, the way participants themselves often do when engaged in social interaction

Iconology, visual culture and media aestetics

The article contains fragments of three chapters form the book Image Science. Iconology, Visual Culture and Media Aesthetics (Chicago 2015), titled The are no Visual Media , Back to the Drawing Board  and Foundational Sites and Occupied Spaces . W. J. T. Mitchell created in his previous works the key concepts which imply an approach to images as true objects of investigation – an “image science”. Author, continuing with his influential line of thoughts, amplifies interdisciplinary studies of visual media. The chapters also delve into such topics as conections between new media and architecture or the occupation of space in contemporary popular uprisings. Image science  is a call for a method of studying images that overcomes the “two-culture split” between the natural and human sciences.The article contains fragments of three chapters form the book Image Science. Iconology, Visual Culture and Media Aesthetics (Chicago 2015), titled The are no Visual Media , Back to the Drawing Board  and Foundational Sites and Occupied Spaces . W. J. T. Mitchell created in his previous works the key concepts which imply an approach to images as true objects of investigation – an “image science”. Author, continuing with his influential line of thoughts, amplifies interdisciplinary studies of visual media. The chapters also delve into such topics as conections between new media and architecture or the occupation of space in contemporary popular uprisings. Image science  is a call for a method of studying images that overcomes the “two-culture split” between the natural and human sciences

Teaching Piano to Students with Disabilties: A Collective Case Study

The purpose of this collective case study was to explore the ways in which piano teachers most effectively alter their curriculum to accommodate students with disabilities. Three piano teachers were recruited for this study and were interviewed about their education and teaching experiences. The interview questions used in this study were constructed to detail their educational background, specifically considering their background in special education, if any, and to describe specific ways in which they have accommodated students with disabilities. The questions also sought to discover how familiar they were with the resources available for accommodating students with disabilities. The participants mentioned several important factors in accommodating students with disabilities in piano lessons. Teacher-student collaboration was found to be essential in accommodating those with physical disabilities, while cognitive or behavioral disabilities seemed to have more complex solutions. Student interest and varying lesson pacing was noted to be particularly effective with students who had behavioral issues. According to the participants, physical disabilities were easiest to accommodate, while accommodations for students with behavioral or emotional disabilities required the most planning. The participants of this study found their preparation for special education from their higher education institutions particularly lacking. They stressed that although they received poor training for accommodating disabilities, there is no substitute for experience. Experience in teaching students with disabilities was shown to be the most helpful tool in making more informed decisions about their accommodations for these students

The Talking Heads experiment: Origins of words and meanings

The Talking Heads Experiment, conducted in the years 1999-2001, was the first large-scale experiment in which open populations of situated embodied agents created for the first time ever a new shared vocabulary by playing language games about real world scenes in front of them. The agents could teleport to different physical sites in the world through the Internet. Sites, in Antwerp, Brussels, Paris, Tokyo, London, Cambridge and several other locations were linked into the network. Humans could interact with the robotic agents either on site or remotely through the Internet and thus influence the evolving ontologies and languages of the artificial agents. The present book describes in detail the motivation, the cognitive mechanisms used by the agents, the various installations of the Talking Heads, the experimental results that were obtained, and the interaction with humans. It also provides a perspective on what happened in the field after these initial groundbreaking experiments. The book is invaluable reading for anyone interested in the history of agent-based models of language evolution and the future of Artificial Intelligence