TITLE:
Applied Behavior Analysis in Residential Settings: Use of a Mobile Application to Support Parental Engagement in At-Home Educational Activities
AUTHORS:
Isabela Zaine, Priscila Benitez, Kamila Rios da Hora Rodrigues, Maria da Graça Campos Pimentel
KEYWORDS:
ABA, ESPIM, Complementary Educational Activities, Home-Based Interventions, Mobile Application, Parents, Autism Spectrum Disorder
JOURNAL NAME:
Creative Education,
Vol.10 No.8,
August
19,
2019
ABSTRACT: Parental involvement in interventions based on Applied Behavior Analysis for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)isencouraged to increase learning opportunities at home. The use of technologies increases theextent of interventions that occur outside therapeutic settings. Thus, our maingoals were: 1)to compare the effect of the use of a mobile application—ESPIM—on the frequency of conducting complementary educational activities by parents at home, to traditional strategies (verbal and written instructions); 2)to analyze the strategies used by the parents and the reliability of the performance registry; 3)to analyze the viability of adoption of a software solution as support for parents. Three families and their children with ASD participated. The results indicated that the use of the application proved to be effective to increase parental engagement in conducting the complementary educational activities at home with reliable registry. The technological support seemed to be a viable solution to increase parental engagement, as it waseasily and readily adopted and as it was perceived by parents as useful.