COMPUTER-BASED INTERVENTION FOR AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER CHILDREN AND THEIR SOCIAL SKILLS: A META-ANALYSIS

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder(ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that arises due to the abnormal development of the brain. ASD children mainly deficit in social and communication skills. Computer based intervention has been identified as one of the most prominent method to improve social skills of autism spectrum disorder children. Computer based intervention such as serious game, virtual reality, robotic, neurofeedback and multitouch interfaces have been developed to support children with ASD. This paper analyses and reflects all the previous researches carried out in computer based interventions for children of ASD to improve social skills since 2010.This literature review addresses two systematic research questions: How the computer based intervention is used or developed and the effectiveness of computer based intervention for autism spectrum disorder children in improvement of social skills. Therefore, the specific objectives of this paper are described as; to review the computer based interventions which were used to improve social skills of autism spectrum disorder children; and to analyse the findings of the previous work.The analysis of different studies revealed that computer based games are popularly used to improve the social skills of the ASD children and it is also observed that computer based interventions proved to be the useful interventions to improve the social skills of autism spectrum disorder children.