Recently we knew that autism, a disorder that still has a lot of unknowns and that, luckily, more and more things are being discovered, will change its definition in the dictionary.
Today we bring you an application for educational intervention in autism: "The Pictogram Room", a totally free download application that has been created thanks to the cooperation of the Autism Group of the Robotics Institute of the University of Valencia and the Orange Foundation, among other entities.
"The room of the pictograms" is composed of a set of educational games for all those children (and also adolescents and adults) with autism, and that in a playful and entertaining way can advance in the development of those areas that need it , taking advantage of their strengths.
This set of activities you can download it is downloaded for free from its website, being compatible with the Windows 7 operating system, the use of the Kinect sensor for Microsoft Xbox being necessary to be able to carry out the different proposed activities, which makes both its installation and its use very simple.
Thanks to the use of the Kinect sensor, children who are doing any of the activities offered by "The room of the pictograms" can interact properly without the need to carry any type of device. In addition, taking into account the difficulty of children with autism to predict what is going to happen, all games follow the same predictable structure.
While doing the different activities you can check the progress in it thanks to an indicator placed in the upper area of the screen which, each time an exercise is completed, will be filled in to indicate the progress and the amount of remaining interactions of each activity. The purpose of this indicator is to present a stable and predictable visual aid for the child with autism.
Currently, two packages of activities are offered (adding a total of 40 exercises to perform) each of which is intended to work on two aspects of the person's development: body scheme and postures. The striking thing is that the activities are customizable, in order to adapt them to the preferences of each child taking into account factors as important for their development as their abilities, the pace of learning they have or add their favorite songs to encourage them.
With the games destined to work the body scheme, the child with autism gradually increases attention to the different parts of his body and the character that appears on the screen that represents him. To work the postures exercises are used with which it is intended to make the child more aware of his body and learn to differentiate between various postures.
These types of activities have been elaborated since it is proven that children with autism have difficulties to perceive and properly process human figures, which also affects their non-verbal communication.
On the website we can also find a didactic guide where both parents and educators (hence the richness of this application: not only its use is reduced to the educational field) can take full advantage of the activities found in this place.
"The room of the pictograms" It is a very useful tool for those children who are within the broad Autism Spectrum Disorder, whether high or low performance. In addition, it involves opening a new door in the intervention in this type of disorder where new technologies will help them learn and develop in the most playful way possible.
