Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress
International
Special Education Conference
Inclusion: Celebrating Diversity?
1st - 4th August 2005. Glasgow, Scotland
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Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress 1st - 4th August 2005. Glasgow, Scotland |
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Mary Barry
Dept. of Physical & Quantitative Sciences
Waterford Institute of Technology
Waterford, Ireland
mbarry@wit.ie
Ian Pitt
Dept. of Computer Science
University College Cork
Cork, Ireland
i.pitt@cs.ucc.ie
Within the special education context, a user-centred software design approach should increase the efficiency of computer-based learning material appropriate for the young learner who is autistic. A key aspect of educational software that engages and supports the young learner is an appropriate interface design. Autistic spectrum characteristics and unique learning styles require a user model that can inform the educational software design process. In this study an interaction model, based on the Norman model, provides a basis for mapping special user requirements and instructional strategies onto an extended interaction model to suit the learner who is autistic. This extended interaction model, incorporating instructional systems design, is proposed as an appropriate model for the design of effective educational software for this special education context.
Keywords :
Autistic learning styles, user profile, instructional software, interface design, interaction model
This study is an investigation of computer mediated learning in the context of Special Education and the learner who is autistic. The phenomenon of autism is receiving more attention in educational research in recent years. In Ireland in November 2000, the joint Irish Departments of Education established parallel Task Groups, north and south, to make recommendations on educational provision for children and young people with autism. This resulted in the all-Ireland Report of the Task Group on Autism (2002), a comprehensive study of the current situation, with recommendations for further improvements.
Given the increased emphasis on the use of Educational Technology in education, it is generally believed there has been an increase in the use of educational software in special education. However, it appears that no systematic study has been carried out on the provision and effectiveness of educational software, suited to young users on the autistic spectrum, in the Irish Special Education context. The present study aims to combine the disciplines of Computer Science and Education, to investigate an efficient means of presenting computer-based learning material that is appropriate for the young learner who is autistic.
Requirements analysis and a specific user profile, used as basic building blocks for the software design process, should result in a more appropriate framework for effective educational software design.
We know from the literature that Special Education must respond to the autistic characteristics associated with autism’s triad of impairments, i.e., impairment of social interaction, of social communication and of social imagination (Wing and Gould, 1979). With regard to social interaction, the child with autism may be unaware of social rules and may relate better to objects than to people. In social communication, the child may be slow to develop speech and eye contact. Social imagination impairment means that the child may be inflexible and resist change.
The child with autism may have other cognitive difficulties that hinder the developmental and learning processes, e.g., Theory of Mind (TOM) problems (Baron-Cohen, 1995), weak central coherence (Frith, 1989) and disorders of executive function (Ozonoff, 1995). Research by Baron-Cohen among others on TOM has shown that children with autism have difficulty understanding another person’s mental state or what others are thinking. The weak central coherence feature means that they often have a preoccupation with details but are not able to make interpretations from a coherent ‘whole’ perspective. The executive function problems relate to difficulties with planning, decision making and scheduling as well as limitations with working memory and representations in long-term memory.
The research documented in the literature gives a comprehensive list of characteristics that form the theoretical basis for the description of the learner. However, the very nature of an autistic spectrum disorder means that a child may be on any point of the spectrum, with different combinations of these characteristics, and this makes the design of appropriate educational software more complex.
According to Jordan and Powell (1996) the social impairment evident in autism has a profound effect on all aspects of learning and development. Normal social relationships are “enabling devices that afford opportunities for further social development”. In normally developing children there is a need to “make sense of things and everyday situations”. This sense of inquiry is lacking in the autistic child (Frith, 2003). This in turn gives rise to difficulties in thinking and learning that Jordan and Powell refer to as a distinctive autistic style of thinking, which they document under the headings of:
By elaborating on the autistic way of thinking, Jordan and Powell hope to encourage educators to build upon the autistic learner’s cognitive abilities, social abilities and learning potential. This includes the use of strategies to build confidence, the establishment of a challenging (but non-threatening) problem-solving atmosphere and the use of positive reinforcement to encourage the learning effort.
In a recent publication Powell (2001) states: “There is a need to try to reconceptualise teaching and learning in autism as a matter of the teacher learning about how the pupil can learn”. According to Powell, autistic learning is distinctive in being “asocial, non-subjective and unconnected”. Instructional strategies in educational software design must take these learning traits into consideration and devise learning material that can help to overcome these challenges.
To incorporate the advice of experts in the field of autism, we must adapt the educational software design process to address known aspects of autistic learning styles. Educational software needs to support the deficits and complement the learning styles or strengths. The list of relationships in Table 1 between autistic characteristics and possible areas of computer support shows that, as a teaching and learning tool, the computer may have a definite role to play in addressing special needs.
Table 1 Software support for impairments in autism
Impairments in Autism
|
Possible Support from Computer Software |
Triad of Impairments: |
|
Social interaction |
Use of software and games may encourage interaction with the tutor and support sharing and turn-taking. |
Social communication |
Speech and writing packages may offer a medium for communication and also support emerging speech. |
Social imagination |
Software offers a safe haven of repetition and routine. The tutor can very gradually modify interactions to encourage flexibility. |
Other Cognitive Problems: |
|
Theory of Mind |
Social scenarios can be built to give the child insight into others’ perspectives and prepare them for upcoming events. |
Weak central coherence |
A simple interface design can limit distractions initially and gradually build up the perspective of the ‘whole’ concept. |
Executive function |
The computer can be used as a tool to manage cognitive load, appropriate to the learner’s capabilities. |
In response to Jordan and Powell’s recommendations, we can see that the computer, together with appropriately designed software, has the potential to incorporate strategies to “build confidence”, offer help with “problem-solving” and provide “positive reinforcement” throughout the learning process. These recommendations need to be mapped into the software design process.
The software design process can be seen as a set of phases, described in broad terms as Analysis, Design, Implementation and Evaluation. At each phase, accommodations must be made to address the special needs of the user who is autistic. A good understanding of the user is necessary at the outset, so that the user profile and user requirements can inform each phase, especially the foundation phases of Analysis and Design (Pressman, 2005).
The user, in this case the young learner who is autistic, needs to be central to the software design process. It is essential to document the user characteristics and user requirements. The literature has indicated the high-level autistic characteristics. It is necessary also to investigate the real user in an authentic context. This is normally achieved through observation of users as they carry out their normal tasks. To this end, the first practical steps in this study were to meet with intended users or target audience, i.e., children with autism and their tutors, in their normal school setting.
A series of exploratory visits to Irish Special Education units and schools was undertaken. The schools or units were for mild to moderately autistic learners, in Primary level education, (4 to 12 year olds), but mainly in the younger years of that age range. In these initial visits, the emphasis was on gaining familiarity with the daily routine of the young learners, gaining insight into their learning styles and, where possible, observing their use of available educational software. This initial phase of the investigation was informal in nature, used non-participatory observation and aimed to be non-intrusive on the learners’ routines. In all, nine classroom groups agreed to be visited.
In general, the comments and suggestions from teachers in the classrooms visited bear out what is known in the literature about autistic characteristics and learning styles. These include the triad of impairments, i.e., impairment of social interaction, of social communication and of social imagination (Wing and Gould, 1979) and allied difficulties of Theory of Mind (Baron-Cohen, 1995), weak central coherence (Frith, 1989) and disorders of executive function (Ozonoff, 1995). At this informal level of investigation, it was noted that:
It also emerged that there is a perceived need for the provision of software support for socialisation in the form of ‘Social Scenarios’ based on Carol Gray’s work (Gray and White, 2002). This type of software could assist with socialisation training and preparation for upcoming events.
A follow-up investigation of the types of educational software in common use in the classrooms already visited did not produce a common list of popular software choices. This result was surprising but may be indicative of a number of possibilities, e.g., a difficulty in sourcing information to help with software selection, a lack of time, resources or budget to devote to special software acquisition, or other as yet unidentified factors. These aspects of the software selection process could form the basis of further investigation on a broader scale throughout the Special Education centres in the Irish Primary level sector.
In the discipline of software engineering, the principles of interface design play a pivotal role in determining the usability and effectiveness of any software that is developed. In particular, educational software design needs to incorporate the principles of Instructional Systems Design as an integral part of that design process. A model of interaction is a good starting point that allows us to focus on the requirements of the user. The interaction model devised by Norman (1988), depicting an execution-evaluation cycle, can be used as a basis for modelling the interactions of the learner. Norman’s model is useful in that it allows us to focus on aspects of the interaction that may cause problems to the user (Dix et al, 2004). Norman termed these problems as gulfs of execution and gulfs of evaluation. The gulf of execution refers to the difference between what the system can allow the user to do and what the user wishes to achieve. The gulf of evaluation represents the distance between what the system presents to the user and what the user expected. In designing software to support learning, it would be important to minimise on these ‘gulfs’ so as to ensure an effective interaction for the learner. When software is intended to support the learner with autism there is an even greater need to avoid or at least diminish the potential for these gulfs.
Gulfs of Evaluation
In the Norman model, the evaluation phase of the interaction cycle represents the system’s communication with the user, who in this case is the autistic learner. The choice of appropriate modes of communication will determine how well the learner understands the result of the interaction with the system and if indeed the interaction has any educational value. This in turn may effect the learner’s motivation to continue with a subsequent interaction. There is a need to consider the choice of symbolic level of communication. Peeters (2001), in reference to helping children with autism to learn, outlines four different levels of symbolic communication as follows:
In a computer-based system, the first three levels are possible, and in sophisticated virtual reality systems an attempt at the fourth level can be simulated. For commonly available educational software, the symbolic levels will encompass the first three levels.
Level One: Spoken message
At this level there may be too much cognitive overload for the learner, as narration is temporal and transient and cannot be recalled effortlessly, unless the system provides a mechanism for recall and replay. The learner with autism generally has a preference for less narrative and more visual support (Hodgdon, 1995).
Level Two: Spoken message with written message
At this level, there is a risk that the presence of the written message may not aid understanding, in the case where the user is not a competent reader. Also since two input channels, visual and auditory, are being addressed there may be an information processing overload in the learner’s working memory (Clark & Mayers, 2003).
Level Three: Spoken message with relevant picture
This level of symbolic communication is one that appears to suit the learner with autism, as the use of a visual image provides a more concrete means of communication. This form of ‘augmentative communication’ recommended by Peeters is well suited to the use of multimedia in a computer-supported learning environment.
Gulfs of Execution
According to the Norman model of interaction, the execution phase can be described as having the following sub-phases:
In order to minimise the gulfs of execution, the tasks that the user is expected to carry out in a computer-based environment must be supported by a user interface design that addresses the learning styles and interaction styles of the user. The Graphical User Interface (GUI) must be designed to reduce the cognitive load on the special needs learner. In this context, software engineering techniques provide methods for goal decomposition and task analysis. For example, the Goals, Operators, Methods and Selection (GOMS) model (Card et al, 1983), provides a methodological approach to the description of how tasks are performed by the typical user. A more precise description model of the learner who is autistic is required so that tasks are analysed to a fine level of granularity, when gulfs of execution are to be avoided.
An extension to Norman’s model is proposed by Abowd and Beale (1991). This extended interaction framework depicts four components in an interactive system: System, User, Input and Output, with four translations between them (articulation, performance, presentation and observation) in the order shown in Figure 1 on the labelled arcs.
Figure 1 Interaction Framework (reproduced from Abowd and Beale, 1991)
The components cannot be considered in isolation, but this study gives priority to the User component as it represents the learner with autism. To focus more directly on aspects that need to support the interaction of the user who is autistic, each translation needs to be examined so that autistic characteristics and special learning styles can be mapped to these translations.
The effectiveness of a particular translation in the modified interaction model is an indication of the effectiveness of the overall interaction. If the user interaction results in the satisfactory completion of the original goal, the outcome can be said to have closed the loop, or avoided a semantic distance between the user’s goal formulation and goal assessment. However, if any of the translations fail, the user interaction will not be successful from a learning perspective. The notion of distance or workload is associated with each translation or arc in the model.
This translation in the evaluation cycle deals with the results of a user’s interaction with the system. Concerns at this point relate to how best to present an outcome to the user in a manner that will allow him to realise that he has carried out a task and achieved a goal. To configure this translation for the learner who is autistic involves emphasising the positive, especially when corrections need to be given. This approach allows the learner to see that he is taking part in an enjoyable scenario (Jordan & Powell, 1996). This in turn should prepare the user for the next translation, Observation, in which he needs to feel encouraged to continue to use the system.
The Observation Translation
This translation in the evaluation cycle will be crucial in maintaining the user’s interest and in motivating him to continue to interact with the system. At this point, the next step must be clear to the user, so that he is not in doubt as to what to do next. To configure this translation for the learner who is autistic, the interaction could allow for a pause and reward interlude, to reinforce the sense of achievement and to allow a mental rest. Provision can be made for onscreen snap-shots of favourite cartoon characters or other stimulating diversions, to allow the learner to enjoy a moment of relaxation. An example of this approach is used in the DT Trainer instructional software (DT-Trainer, 2003), based on the Discrete Trial intervention method, which is part of Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA). This software environment allows the tutor to configure learning scenarios that are interspersed with short onscreen ‘reinforcers’, offered as part of an encouragement and reward system to keep the learner engaged and focused.
The Articulation Translation
This translation in the execution cycle, and the distance associated with it, refers to the ease of use of the system, and how suitable the interface design is for the learner. It must be engaging and non-threatening, so that the user is encouraged to try to achieve a particular task. To configure this translation for the learner who is autistic, the colour scheme and screen layout elements of the interface need to accommodate the learner’s preferences and predominant learning styles. Tasks should be proposed at a fine-grained level of granularity, at a cognitive level appropriate to the user and the screen should be uncluttered. Howlin (2002) recommends that when making use of images for communication, whether computerised or not, “the format should be simple, clear and uncluttered”.
The Performance Translation
This translation in the execution cycle is concerned with internal system performance. It needs to be programmed so that the system is responsible for efficient error control, to avoid the possibility of reinforcing an incorrect concept. To configure this translation for the learner who is autistic, the system must be programmed to give some immediate feedback so the learner knows that the interaction is having some effect. The potential for error must be minimised and the user must not be kept waiting. Interface elements must be stored and programmed in an optimal manner to provide a high performance rate. Learners who are autistic may lose interest or patience with a slow system and the learning opportunity may be lost. According to Cumine et al (2003) a predictable environment minimises anxieties and maximises attention to the task.
Balancing the Translations
The amount of workload at any particular translation determines what must be achieved during that translation, in preparation for the subsequent translation. Abowd and Beale, (1991) the designers of this modified model, recommend that there be a trade-off between closely related translations. This trade-off type design approach should result in one translation assuming more responsibility so that another translation is more concise, shorter in distance and less likely to afford gulfs of evaluation or gulfs of execution.
For example in the evaluation cycle, initiated by the system in the direction of the user, the Presentation translation and Observation translation are closely linked, the former preceding the latter. To avoid gulfs of evaluation in the case of the learner who is autistic, the Presentation translation needs to assume almost all responsibility for ensuring the user is presented with a result, an outcome or a clear confirmation that the learning goal was achieved. In instructional software design there is an added onus on the software designer and instructional designer to gently correct a misunderstanding, in a manner that allows the learner to learn from the interaction and be better able to redo the task with a greater possibility of success the next time. If this approach is adopted for the Presentation translation, the Observation translation should provide fewer opportunities for confusion and more potential for reinforcing learning.
In the execution cycle, initiated by the user in the direction of the system, the Articulation translation is followed by the Performance translation. To avoid gulfs of execution and in support of the Articulation translation, the system needs to assume the responsibility of ensuring that the user’s task execution is anticipated and supported. The ‘scaffolding’ approach can be employed here. The term ‘scaffolding’ in the context of the learner refers to a theory proposed by Vygotsky, whereby a lot of instructional support is provided for the novice learner (Ashman & Conway, 1997). This support is gradually withdrawn as the learner becomes more confident and independent. The software design in the execution cycle needs to be adaptive to the progress of the learner and the learner’s needs at each stage of progress. At appropriate stages in the learner achievement, more independent activity is encouraged in the Articulation translation, thereby encouraging user independence and a transfer of skills that allows the user to undertake tasks in a more independent manner. Therefore the distance incorporated in the Articulation translation in the beginning needs to be very short, with the main distance or workload being taken up by the Performance translation. Over time and in accordance with user achievement, the distances in these two translations can be adjusted in a reciprocal manner so that a balance of task execution is still maintained, but achieved differently, with the learner allowed more independent control of the learning activities.
The authors recommend the addition of an instructional design overlay to Norman’s interaction model and its modified interaction framework proposed by Abowd and Beale, see Figure 2. The addition to the model of instructional strategies appropriate for the learner who is autistic, should ensure that the needs of the learner are factored into the design process for special educational software at each phase of the interaction cycle.
Figure 2 Instructional Design overlay on the interaction model (adapted from Abowd and Beale, 1991)
In the case of educational software design, the discipline of software engineering integrates into its life cycle the Instructional Systems Design approach. Instructional design software tools exist to aid the developer in the analysis, planning and implementation of educational software. A recently released instructional design tool, the ADAPT-IT Blueprint Designer (ADAPT-IT, 2003), has been designed to support the design of training courses for complex cognitive skills. The ADAPT-IT tool guides the designer through task analysis and the building of practice exercises that support learning by avoiding cognitive overload and establishing a correct sequencing of tasks. It is based on the Four Component Instructional Design (4C/ID) model (Van Merriënboer, 1997), and is being examined in the present study for its applicability to the design of educational software for the learner who is autistic. Its support for attention to detail in user analysis, task analysis, learning objectives and content design is the type of approach that appears necessary in order to address the issues involved in educational software design for the special needs learning environment.
By engaging in requirements analysis and establishing a specific user profile, the software designer can incorporate the needs of the learner who is autistic as basic building blocks into the software design process. The use of existing interaction models, modified to incorporate instructional strategies, should result in a more appropriate framework for effective educational software design.
The combination of two well known interaction models already existent in the literature, with the authors’ proposed extended model including instructional strategies, and the use of a newly released Instructional Systems Design (ISD) tool, is a significant step towards the establishment of a specific framework for the design of appropriate educational software for the learner who is autistic.
This proposed combination of interaction models and an ISD tool needs further study and an evaluation process before it can be validated as a pedagogically sound approach that results in more effective software design for the special education context.
References
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Wing, L. and Gould, J. (1979) ‘Severe impairments of social interaction and associated abnormalities in children: epidemiology and classification’, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 9, 11-29.
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