Teaching Literacy Skills to French Minimally Verbal School-Aged Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders with the Serious Game SEMA-TIC: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Learning to read is very challenging for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), but also very important, as it can give them access to new knowledge. This is even more challenging in minimally verbal children, who do not have the verbal abilities to learn through usual methods. To address the learning of literacy skills in French minimally verbal school-aged children with ASD, we designed the serious game SEMA-TIC, which relies on non-verbal cognitive skills and uses specific learning strategies adapted to the features of autistic individuals. This study investigated the usability of SEMA-TIC (in terms of adaptability, efficiency, and effectiveness) for the acquisition of literacy skills in French minimally verbal school-aged children with ASD. Twenty-five children with ASD and no functional language participated in the study. Children in the training group received the SEMA-TIC training over 23 weeks (on average), while no intervention was provided to children in the non-training group. Results indicated that SEMA-TIC presents a suitable usability, as all participants were able to play (adaptability), to complete the training (efficiency) and to acquire significant literacy skills (effectiveness). Indeed, the literacy skills in the training group significantly improved after the training, as measured by specific experimental tasks (alphabet knowledge, word reading, word-non-word discrimination, sentence reading and word segmentation; all p ≤ 0.001) compared to the non-training group. More importantly, 3 out of 12 children of the training group could be considered as word decoders at the end of the intervention, whereas no children of the non-training group became able to decode words efficiently. The present study thus brings preliminary evidence that French minimally verbal school-aged children with ASD are able to learn literacy skills through SEMA-TIC, a specific computerized intervention consisting in a serious game based on non-verbal cognitive skills.

Keywords: autism spectrum disorders; literacy skills; non-verbal cognition; reading skills; serious games.

Figure 1

SEMA-TIC menu. (1) 3 mini-games for the player to learn how to use the mouse; (2a) selection of one of the 10 series (e.g., “hit”); (2b) selection of one of the 10 types of games; (3) dictionary of letters, words, and sentences; (4) monitoring for the caregiver.

Figure 2

SEMA-TIC games implying whole word recognition and learning association. In Game 1, the player has to choose the correct word, based on the its verbalization and image. In Game 2, the player is shown several copies of an object to generalize his vocabulary. In Game 9, the player has to choose the correct sentence, based on a 3D animation implying 2 objects and 1 verb. In Game 10, the player has to choose correctly and put in order 3 pictures, based on a written sentence.

Figure 3

SEMA-TIC games implying alphabet knowledge and decoding. In Game 3, the player has to pair words written in uppercase and in lowercase. In Game 5, the player has to identify words correctly according to their first letter or syllable. In Game 6, the player has to choose correct words based on families. In Game 7, the player has to select words to form a new word from some visual syllables. In Game 8, the player has to decide if a series of letters could exist or not in the French language.

Figure 4

SEMA-TIC game implying writing. In Game 4, the player has to type on the keyboard a given word after the presentation of this word, a picture, or an oral verbalization. All letters to be typed can remain displayed, or only the first one.

Figure 5

Evolution of performances in the experimental tasks. Results of training group (gray bars) compared to non-training group (white bars). Mean percentage of correct responses before (pre-test) and after (post-test) intervention, with standard deviations, for each experimental task (Alphabet Knowledge AK, Word Reading WR, Word Non-Word Discrimination WNWD, Sentence Reading SR, and Word Segmentation WS).