A Tablet Computer-Assisted Motor and Language Skills Training Program to Promote Communication Development in Children with Autism: Development and Pilot Study

ABSTRACT

Autism is a heterogenous condition, encompassing many different subtypes and presentations. Of those people with autism who lack communicative speech, some are more skilled at receptive language than their expressive difficulty might suggest. This disparity between what can be spoken and what can be understood correlates with motor and especially oral motor abilities, and thus may be a consequence of limits to oral motor skill. Point OutWords, tablet-based software targeted for this subgroup, builds on autistic perceptual and cognitive strengths to develop manual motor and oral motor skills prerequisite to communication by pointing or speaking. Although typical implementations of user-centered design rely on communicative speech, Point OutWords users were involved as co-creators both directly via their own nonverbal behavioral choices and indirectly via their communication therapists’ reports; resulting features include vectorized, high-contrast graphics, exogenous cues to help capture and maintain attention, customizable reinforcement prompts, and accommodation of open-loop visuomotor control.

Acknowledgments

M.KB.’s work on development of Point OutWords was supported by a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Fellowship from the United States – India Educational Foundation, funded by the governments of India and the United States. M.K.B.’s work on preparation of this report was funded in part by the UK National Institute for Health Research: This report is independent research funded by the National Institute for Health Research – Research for Patient Benefit, “Evaluation of Point OutWords, a Motor Skills Intervention to Promote Language Development in Non-Verbal Children with Autism: A Feasibility Study”, PB-PG-0816–20019. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the National Institute for Health Research or the Department of Health.

Additional information

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Notes on contributors

E. J. Weisblatt

E. J. Weisblatt is a consultant developmental neuropsychiatrist. She obtained her PhD in schizophrenia genetics. She is a member of the Cambridge Laboratory for Research in Autism (CLaRa) in the Psychology Department of the University of Cambridge, with research interests including perception, movement disorders and clinical phenotypes, genetics and neuropsychiatry.

C. S. Langensiepen

C. S. Langensiepen is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computing and Technology at Nottingham Trent University. Her research interests include ambient intelligence, robotics and assistive systems for the elderly, as well as more general aspects of user-centered design and requirements elicitation.

B. Cook

B. Cook is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computing and Technology at Nottingham Trent University. She teaches mobile-platform programming and studies usability of smart devices in education and healthcare, working closely with industrial partners.

C. Dias

C. Dias is a psychology student and parent of two children with autism. She has for two years been a parent partner advising and facilitating the development of Point Outwords.

K. Plaisted Grant

K. Plaisted Grant is a Senior University Lecturer in the Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, and is head of the CLaRA lab. She researches cognition and perception in autism, particularly categorization, visual perception and auditory processing.

M. Dhariwal

M. Dhariwal is a doctoral student at the MIT Media Lab in the Laboratory for Social Machines, with a background in creating games for language learning. His master’s thesis in computer science at MIT looked at children as gifted language builders; specifically, he developed an experimental and theoretical tool for studying the language of geometric concepts.

M. S. Fairclough

M. S. Fairclough studied Psychological and Behavioural Sciences at the University of Cambridge, graduating in 2017. She worked as a member of the Point OutWords project team in 2016–17.

S. E. Friend

S. E. Friend studied Psychological and Behavioural Sciences at the University of Cambridge, graduating in 2017. She worked as a member of the Point OutWords project team in 2016–17.

A. E. Malone

A. E. Malone studied Psychological and Behavioural Sciences at the University of Cambridge, graduating in 2017. She worked as a member of the Point OutWords project team in 2016–17.

B. Varga-Elmiyeh

B. Varga-Elmiyeh is studying medicine at the University of Cambridge and took his intercalated BA in Psychology, graduating in 2017. He worked as a member of the Point OutWords project team in 2016–17.

A. Rybicki

A. Rybicki is a BBSRC-funded PhD student in Neuroscience at the University of Birmingham. Her current research investigates disorders of movement and social cognition in those with autism spectrum conditions.

P. Karanth

P. Karanth is a speech language pathologist, and Founder Director of The Communication DEALL Trust.  She has worked over four decades in adult aphasias, acquired dyslexias, learning disability, specific language impairment and communication in autism/pervasive developmental disorders.  Her clinical work, research, and pedagogy have driven the Com DEALL programme.

M. K. Belmonte

M. K. Belmonte’s research asks how domain-general cognitive capacities shape the developmental emergence of both social and non-social perception, cognition and action – giving rise to individual differences therein and autistic disorders thereof. His work in England, the United States and India has related autistic traits, cognitive sex and gender differences, individualistic and collectivistic cultures, construal level, and psychological distance.