Towards developing digital interventions supporting empathic ability for children with autism spectrum disorder

Abstract

It is very challenging for children with autism to express their emotions to others as well as to recognise others’ feelings accurately. As social difficulties of autistic people might aggravate their loneliness and social isolation, a holistic development is required from an early age. This study aimed to suggest a digital intervention for supporting autistic children’s empathy development by using design thinking. This study developed a mobile-interface design on the basis of the human-centred design approach, and a prototype was evaluated by stakeholders with respect to acceptability and usability. Usability was measured by twelve statements of a combination of design guidelines and the system usability scale, and subsequently, open-end interview questions were offered to collect data regarding acceptability. The separate interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim, and thus, meaningful data were selected and clustered by themes. The result of the qualitative data analysis is represented by eighteen themes in five categories. Altogether, this research suggests a phased (bit-by-bit) strategy for teaching empathy of children with ASD through a digital intervention.