Using Technology to support the Education of Children with Autism Spectrum Conditions

传统上，自闭症被定义为“三联障碍”（Wing 1988），这些障碍或典型发展轨迹的偏差，据说影响三个主要领域：思想和行为的灵活性，对社会行为的理解，以及沟通。实际上，这意味着患有自闭症谱系疾病（ASCs）的人通常需要适应的教育环境，因为他们喜欢固定的日常生活，他们需要在学习社会线索、行为和有效沟通策略方面获得额外的支持。由于自90年代中期以来全纳教育系统的政治压力增加以及ASC诊断数量的增加，ASC儿童越来越多地在主流教育环境中接受教育。鉴于现代技术的灵活性和不断增长的能力，它似乎可能是一种有用的工具，可以缓解ASC儿童的需求与主流教育环境中对他们的需求之间产生的一些冲突。然而，尽管有许多论文探讨了基于特定技术的干预措施的有效性，但关于如何在现实环境中使用它来促进教育的工作却很少。因此，该项目旨在研究技术的使用，通过支持日常过渡来促进包容，它将着眼于实际实践及其在主流和家庭教育背景下的潜在用途。

Autism has traditionally been defined in terms of a 'triad of impairments' (Wing 1988),these impairments, or deviances from typical developmental trajectories, are said toaffect three main areas: flexibility of thought and behaviour, understanding of socialbehaviours, and communication. In real terms, this means that people who have autismspectrum conditions (ASCs) often require adapted educational environments, due totheir preference for fixed routines, and their requirement for additional support inlearning social cues, behaviours, and effective communication strategies. Due to theincreased political pressure for fully inclusive education systems since the mid-90s andincreasing number of ASC diagnoses, children with ASC are increasingly educatedwithin mainstream educational settings. Given the flexibility and ever-increasingcapabilities of modern technology, it seems likely that it may be a useful tool to alleviatesome of conflicts arising between the needs of children with ASC and the demandsplaced on them within mainstream educational settings. However, while many papersexploring the efficacy of particular technology-based interventions exist, there has beenlittle work to how it is currently used to facilitate education in real-world settings. Thisproject therefore aims to study the use of technology that facilitates inclusion bysupporting everyday transitions, it will both look at actual practise and its potentialusage both in a mainstream and a home-education context.