Literacy LABELS: emergent literacy application design for children with autism

ABSTRACT

We introduce the design and development of the iPad application, Literacy LABELS, which aims to help children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) develop the early literacy skills necessary to bridge toward reading and writing. There is a common thread among children with ASD to use decoding skills to read. This ability can even occur before they develop functional verbal communication. Yet, these children struggle with reading for meaning and lack the ability to comprehend text. (Randi, Newman, and Grigorenko 2010) This application is our effort on improving this situation. Labeling is used in many typical development preschool and kindergarten classrooms to help non-readers connect the orthography and the meaning of the word by placing a label on the actual object. Literacy LABELS was designed for the iPad to help children with ASD develop the skills necessary to read for meaning by using this emergent literacy skill.

References

1. Putnam, C., and L. Chong. 2008. "Software and Technologies Designed for People with Autism: What Do Users Want?" In Proceedings of the 10th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, 3--10.
2. Randi, J., T. Newman, and E. L Grigorenko. 2010. "Teaching Children with Autism to Read for Meaning: Challenges and Possibilities." Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 40 (7): 890--902.
3. Rasche, N., and C. Z. Qian. 2012. "Work in Progress: Application Design on Touch Screen Mobile Computers (TSMC) to Improve Autism Instruction." In Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), 2012.