The article presents a case study of training engineers through social projects in the open source software movement. The project is aimed at development of a mobile application for behavioral therapy of autistic children. The application was developed within the framework of the students' group project carried out at Gdansk University of Technology with the participation of the Institute for Child Development in Gdansk. Paper presents design, implementation and evaluation of system, that supports activity schedule method of therapy. Such assistive technologies could improve behavioral therapy efficiency and as a result support self-care and independence of autistics, hopefully preventing their exclusion from the society. The case was evaluated from two perspectives: technological support provided for autistics' therapy as well as development of students' attitudes. Based on the therapists' and supervisor's evaluation as well as on analysis of final students' report, one might observe, that although student's motivations were diverse at the beginning of the project, by the end they fluctuated towards more intrinsic and altruistic ones. The example shows that the development of young people's sensitivity to social needs could be woven into the curriculum by defining individual projects for social institutions that provide help.
Autism is a developmental disorder constituting a serious social and economic problem. Early diagnosis and starting appropriate therapy increase the chance to a child's development and thus to avoid social exclusion. Because of the difficulty in access to proper institutions and a long time from the first indications to the diagnosis, the children are being diagnosed later than they should be. Subjective, usually observational, diagnostic criteria are an additional difficulty, because the diagnosis result depend on the experience and insight of the doctor making the diagnosis. The aim of this work is to analyze the possibility of technological support of diagnosis and the evaluation of therapy progress of autistic children, especially using mobile devices. There are some solutions used in this field across the world, but most of them are experimental studies applied in few institutions. The presented study includes a questionnaire survey conducted among Polish institutions working with people with autism. The gathered answers lead to interesting conclusions. Countless institutions use mobile devices in the diagnosis. Most therapists think such support is possible. Moreover, all of them are interested in a system enabling an automatic evaluation of therapy progress for autistic children. Supporting the diagnosis process and the evaluation of therapy progress may increase the chance for independent life of autistic children, and thus decrease the social and economic costs of autism.
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