AssociAR: Gamified Process for the Teaching of Children with Autism Through the Association of Images and Words

Abstract

Autism spectrum is a disorder that offers a lot of difficulties and challenges to people with it and related to. As for the learning process of these children, it is known that the use of consistent repetitions helps in the learning of people with autism and, in addition, that combinations of images with words are one of the main means of aid in learning for autistic people. Augmented Reality (AR) is a digital resource that acts as a way of visualizing virtual elements, often three-dimensional (3D), together with the real environment. AR offers "enormous educational potential" when used in conjunction with gamification. This work aims to implement a gamified project using augmented reality to assist in the learning process of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The project was implemented in "Cri.Ativa", the psycho-pedagogical care room of a child development center that provides multidisciplinary care for children with atypical development (especially for children on the autism spectrum) in Palmas, Brazil. In general, it is considered that the objective of the work was achieved because the desired process was gamified and the results obtained by its implementation were positive. However, it is important to highlight that, due to the huge number of possible characteristics for children with ASD, this result does not demonstrate that the application of the described process will have equally positive outcomes in all contexts.