‘AReal-Vocab’: The New A La Mode of English Vocabulary Learning for Children with Autism

Abstract

American Psychiatric Association defined autism spectrum disorder as a neurological disorder due to which diagnosed child may face difficulty in social communication or have a repeated or restricted set of behaviours. Learners with autism are mostly visual strategy learners and they tend to learn better through pictures and images. Due to their cognitive disabilities, most learners with autism struggle to acquire new vocabulary and with the existence of fourth industrial revolution, the use of technology is no longer a stranger to the education field. Hence, the use of augmented reality technology is considered in this study as past literature has proven that augmented reality technology could help to provide autism learners with a more meaningful learning session. In conjunction to that, this study is aimed at developing a mobile augmented reality application named ‘AReal-Vocab’ to help learners with autism, which then later to be employed as an intervention to autism learners in their English vocabulary learning process. The developed mobile augmented reality application is employed to two mild autism learners aged 7 and 10 years old to qualitatively discover their acceptance towards the developed mobile application. Based on the findings, it can be seen that AReal-Vocab application has given a significant impact on autism learners’ language learning process. AReal-Vocab has helped autism learners to learn English vocabulary in a more interesting yet meaningful manner and at the same time sparks their interest in their English vocabulary language learning process.