Computer mediated approach for improving speaking skills of the autistic children

Abstract

Speech disorder is one of the most common problems found with the autistic children. The problems related to the speech of the autistic children have a wide range of varieties including non-response, low voice, uttering of irrelevant words, repeating sentences, lack of the sense of turn taking etc. We have made a hierarchy of speaking skills and suggested corresponding games for each stage to achieve necessary level of e ciency. From the observations of the already existing literatures, it is proved that the autistic children pay more attention to the computer screen than to human face. Further, the attention span and intensity are much greater for playing any type of game, rather than watching a non-interactive event. Hence, a motivation toward using this attention to develop certain skills in autistic children was achieved. With that motivation, we address the communication issues of the autistic children and try to improve their socialization process through interactive computer games. Speech, being the prime medium of communication, comes to our attention rst. In this thesis, we have developed a number of computer games to develop a better speech of the autistic children. Further, we analysed the speech of the autistic children and automatically detected turns from their speech. The performances of our games were checked against the real dataset developed while working with the children of Autism Welfare Foundation (AWF). Both the quantitative analysis and the qualitative feedback from the parents and the teachers, our games were proved to be an e ective tool for helping the autistic children in their speech development.