A Survey on Autism Care, Diagnosis, and Intervention Based on Mobile Apps Focusing on Usability and Software Design

This article presents a systematic review on autism care, diagnosis, and intervention based on mobile apps running on smartphones and tablets. Here, the term “intervention” means a carefully planned set of activities with the objective of improving autism symptoms. We guide our review on related stu...

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Autores principales: Liu, Xiongyi, Zhao, Wenbing, Qi, Quan, Luo, Xiong
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10384173/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37514555
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s23146260
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author Liu, Xiongyi
Zhao, Wenbing
Qi, Quan
Luo, Xiong
author_facet Liu, Xiongyi
Zhao, Wenbing
Qi, Quan
Luo, Xiong
author_sort Liu, Xiongyi
collection PubMed
description This article presents a systematic review on autism care, diagnosis, and intervention based on mobile apps running on smartphones and tablets. Here, the term “intervention” means a carefully planned set of activities with the objective of improving autism symptoms. We guide our review on related studies using five research questions. First, who benefits the most from these mobile apps? Second, what are the primary purposes of these mobile apps? Third, what mechanisms have been incorporated in these mobiles apps to improve usability? Fourth, what guidelines have been used in the design and implementation of these mobile apps? Fifth, what theories and frameworks have been used as the foundation for these mobile apps to ensure the intervention effectiveness? As can be seen from these research questions, we focus on the usability and software development of the mobile apps. Informed by the findings of these research questions, we propose a taxonomy for the mobile apps and their users. The mobile apps can be categorized into autism support apps, educational apps, teacher training apps, parental support apps, and data collection apps. The individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are the primary users of the first two categories of apps. Teachers of children with ASD are the primary users of the teacher training apps. Parents are the primary users of the parental support apps, while individuals with ASD are usually the primary users of the data collection apps and clinicians and autism researchers are the beneficiaries. Gamification, virtual reality, and autism-specific mechanisms have been used to improve the usability of the apps. User-centered design is the most popular approach for mobile app development. Augmentative and alternative communication, video modeling, and various behavior change practices have been used as the theoretical foundation for intervention efficacy.
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spelling pubmed-103841732023-07-30 A Survey on Autism Care, Diagnosis, and Intervention Based on Mobile Apps Focusing on Usability and Software Design Liu, Xiongyi Zhao, Wenbing Qi, Quan Luo, Xiong Sensors (Basel) Review This article presents a systematic review on autism care, diagnosis, and intervention based on mobile apps running on smartphones and tablets. Here, the term “intervention” means a carefully planned set of activities with the objective of improving autism symptoms. We guide our review on related studies using five research questions. First, who benefits the most from these mobile apps? Second, what are the primary purposes of these mobile apps? Third, what mechanisms have been incorporated in these mobiles apps to improve usability? Fourth, what guidelines have been used in the design and implementation of these mobile apps? Fifth, what theories and frameworks have been used as the foundation for these mobile apps to ensure the intervention effectiveness? As can be seen from these research questions, we focus on the usability and software development of the mobile apps. Informed by the findings of these research questions, we propose a taxonomy for the mobile apps and their users. The mobile apps can be categorized into autism support apps, educational apps, teacher training apps, parental support apps, and data collection apps. The individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are the primary users of the first two categories of apps. Teachers of children with ASD are the primary users of the teacher training apps. Parents are the primary users of the parental support apps, while individuals with ASD are usually the primary users of the data collection apps and clinicians and autism researchers are the beneficiaries. Gamification, virtual reality, and autism-specific mechanisms have been used to improve the usability of the apps. User-centered design is the most popular approach for mobile app development. Augmentative and alternative communication, video modeling, and various behavior change practices have been used as the theoretical foundation for intervention efficacy. MDPI 2023-07-09 /pmc/articles/PMC10384173/ /pubmed/37514555 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s23146260 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Liu, Xiongyi
Zhao, Wenbing
Qi, Quan
Luo, Xiong
A Survey on Autism Care, Diagnosis, and Intervention Based on Mobile Apps Focusing on Usability and Software Design
title A Survey on Autism Care, Diagnosis, and Intervention Based on Mobile Apps Focusing on Usability and Software Design
title_full A Survey on Autism Care, Diagnosis, and Intervention Based on Mobile Apps Focusing on Usability and Software Design
title_fullStr A Survey on Autism Care, Diagnosis, and Intervention Based on Mobile Apps Focusing on Usability and Software Design
title_full_unstemmed A Survey on Autism Care, Diagnosis, and Intervention Based on Mobile Apps Focusing on Usability and Software Design
title_short A Survey on Autism Care, Diagnosis, and Intervention Based on Mobile Apps Focusing on Usability and Software Design
title_sort survey on autism care, diagnosis, and intervention based on mobile apps focusing on usability and software design
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10384173/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37514555
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s23146260
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