THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MANAGING SPLIT ATTENTION AMONG AUTISTIC CHILDREN USING COMPUTER BASED INTERVENTION

ABSTRACT

One of the most common problems in autistic children is split attention. Split attention prevents autism children from being able to focus attention on their learning, and tasks. As a result, it is important to identify how to make autistic individuals focus attention on learning. Considering autistic individuals have higher visual abilities in comparing with ordinary people, visual supports are used to enable learning. With the requirement of visual information displays for autistic children, computer based interventions are used. Previous researches indicated that autistic children could be supported effectively by providing a structured and controlled environment using computer based intervention. In order to overcome autism children’s split attention problems, design issues should be customized for them. Moving forward towards the research, it is concluded that in addition to the design issues to be considered for the autistic children, teaching issues are also required to be incorporated. This research aimed at providing a computer based application, considering the identified design issues incorporated with the teaching issues based on Fakih method for the autistic children to manage their split attention. The considered design issues incorporated with teaching issues are evaluated to identify whether they are effective in enhancing autistic children’s split attention and learning.