Applying the Game Mode and Teaching Strategies of Computational Thinking to the Improvement of Social Skills Training for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Abstract

The main congenital defects of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are social communication barriers and behavioral defects in social reciprocity. Because it is difficult for them to distinguish the deeper social meanings or abstract situational concepts of others in the social reciprocity process, it is difficult for them to give appropriate social responses in a specific social context. Such deficiencies will make it difficult for autistic people to establish further social relationships and social interactions with others. However, with the development and maturity of media technology in recent years, the teaching strategies of interactive technology combined with games are quite common. At present, there are quite a few research applications that use computational thinking (CT) combined with games to apply interactive teaching to ordinary children and achieve good results. However, it is curious what kind of help and influence wills this teaching method have on the social skills training of autistic children. Therefore, with a goal of using CT’s game intervention strategy to help children with ASD improve their skills in social reciprocity, this study will use an interactive game robot with CT concept on the market to guide children with ASD to develop different social skills and reciprocal behaviors and to construct an interactive learning framework for autistic children in social games through materialized operations and visual feedback interfaces.