SMART-ASD

SMART-ASD is a project funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus + Program. Eleven participants from Turkey, United Kingdom and Spain collaborate to improve the education and communication of students with autism and/or learning difficulties with the help of innovative technologies.

The main objective of SMART-ASD project is the development and experimental assessment of appropriate software and protocols for helping professionals and parents to determine the most appropriate technological solutions for the students with autism and/or learning difficulties. With so many potential solutions available, it is essential that parents and professionals are enabled to identify the most effective solution for each person with autism and/or learning disabilities

 SMART-ASD Project, with project number 2015-1-ES01-KA201-015946, has started in September 2015 and will last until the end of September of 2017, and counts with a EU grant of 246.079 €.

savia

The objective of SAVIA is to provide support for training and educational activities that professionals and family members carry out with people that have Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), a nervous system developmental disorder that in half the cases is accompanied by Intellectual Disabilities SAVIA aims to establish a prototype of a virtual and increased reality environment in which to include all the educational contents that are necessary for providing educational support to people with ASD, with or without Intellectual Disabilities. The results of this project will be designed to operate in widely used interactive platforms such as video game consoles, including those that may appear during the project´s life cycle.

http://www.tecnologiasaccesibles.com/en/savia_index.htm

INCLUSIVE CONTENTS

Inclusive Contents is a Project that will tackle two main objectives: a concept test to explore how digital services and contents should be in order to be considered as “inclusive” and also a living lab experience in which a large scale experiment will be carried out to analyse the feasibility of project developments.

This project is being developed by the Autism & Learning Difficulties Group together with TISSAT, Asociación Autismo Ávila andAsociación Autismo Burgos.

INREDIS

Relation Interfaces between the Surroundings and the People with Disability

The INREDIS project, which was approved in July 2007, is a CENIT project (Strategic National Consortiums of Technical Investigation) which is registered in the Spanish government’s initiative INGENIO 2010 and which is managed by the CDTI (Centre of Industrial Technological Development). Its objective is to develop fundamental technologies that enable the creation of communication and interaction channels between people who have some type of special need and their surroundings.

In the INREDIS project, relevant technological objectives in diverse advanced fields of the TICs are dealt with. The investigation is structured into nine main activities or work packages in which the main aspects to achieve a significant technological step forward in the design of accessible and interoperable technology are covered.
In this project, which is led by the Technosite (Fundosa) and the ONCE Foundation, the Autism and Learning Difficulties Group participates by contributing the knowledge that it has about the use of Information and Communication Technologies in the field of autism and intellectual disability as well as by collaborating in the methodological and experimental aspects.

AVISTA

Virtual Actors for the Development of Social Comprehension in Autism and Down Syndrome

The AVISTA project (2006-2007), which is financed by IMSERSO(Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs), deals with the development of a set of tools for work involving the recognition of emotions and social comprehension. The Burgos Down Syndrome Association and the Tissat Company have participated in this.

The Autism and Learning Difficulties Group, in collaboration with the ARTEC group along with the Robotic Institute (University of Valencia) has developed a virtual college in which they also do work on other aspects that are related to the development of concepts, communication, knowledge of the surroundings and symbolic play.

EINA

Intelligent and Accessible EnvironmentIn collaboration with the Valencian Association of Cerebral Paralysis (AVAPACE) and the GSIC group, with both of them being from The Robotic Institute of the University of Valencia, the Autism and Learning Difficulties Group has developed a set of aids and wireless technologies to enable people with reduced mobility and/or cerebral paralysis to control their surroundings according to their will.

The results of the EINA project (2006-2007) do not only acquire the form of technological prototypes but will also be applied in specific surroundings such as the new AVAPACE day centre.

ALTEA

The ALTEA project, which is coordinated by Avila Autism and with participation from the Autism Group of the Robotic Institute (University of Valencia), the Computer Technology Institute of Valencia and the Starlab Company of Barcelona enabled the development of an administration system of stimuli for people with TEA and the gathering of galvanic skin response (GSR) through a wireless bracelet (not invasive) along with a smart system to detect deviations in the response pattern in the GSR signal with respect to typical response. Furthermore, in its first phase (2005-2006) the experimental valuing of a group of 4 people with autism who had developed their communication to the extent of being able to inform us of their sensorial difficulties was carried out, thus enabling us to check the value of the technology that was utilised. An experimental study will subsequently be carried out with participation from people with TEA (N=20) who have not developed their communication to the point where they can express the aforesaid difficulties.

ARAN

Integration at Work of People with Asperger’s Syndrome by means of New Technologies

In this project, which was carried out by the Autism and Learning Difficulties Group of the Robotic Institute in collaboration with the Gautena Association (Guipúzcoa), the Burgos Autism Association and the Lonerson Company (Valencia), a definition of the service needs for people with Asperger’s Syndrome was made with the aim of new technologies enabling them to be incorporated into the labour market.

This project was financed by IMSERSO (2005-2006). We are currently awaiting financing for the setting in motion of the defined services stemming from the needs that were identified in the ARAN project.

ACIERTA2

New Technologies for Autonomous Life and Communication of People with Autism.

The main tool developed within the framework of the ACIERTA2 project is the portal 'www.supportiveeyes.com'. Within this project the autism group collaborates with the company TISSAT, in charge of the coordination tasks. The aforementioned portal gives support to the different work strategies ‘focused on the person’. The Focussed Planning on the Person (called PCP) is a new way of understanding and working with people with disabilities. As the term clearly indicates, it consists of orientating the education efforts on the person and adapting the intervention programmes to the individual needs of the person with the disability. The development of this portal is being financed by IMSERSO (Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs) and by the >Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism.

ACIERTA

Electronic Diaries and Communicators for people with Disorders of the Autism Spectrum

The objective of the ACIERTA project was to analyse the possibility of using devices as electronic diaries, digital information panels and systems of locating and positioning to equip people with autism with higher autonomy and potential and to develop a computer application designed for an electronic diary whose aim will be multiple and would include personal autonomy aspects, communication with others, understanding the surroundings, etc. The developed prototype, which is currently being used in Burgos Autism, provides information that is relevant to the user with regard to the context in which he/she finds him/herself, his/her individual skills and his/her needs and preferences. In the same way, it offers aid towards helping him/her to communicate with the others.

The content of the electronic diaries is managed by the teachers through a data management and maintenance System. Together with Burgos Autism, the University of Birmingham School of Education, the COMUNICA Centre of Diagnostics and Intervention and the Tissat Company. It was financed by IMSERSO (Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs) and by the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism.

APRIL

Virtual Reality as a Support Tool for the Processes of Education and Work Integration of People with Down Syndrome

Within the framework of this project, which was financed by IMSERSO (Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs) and by the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, the tool ‘A picture is better than a thousand words’ was developed and this was aimed at previously training people with intellectual disability who are looking for work in social skills, work responsibilities and personal image. The collaboration of the ‘AURA Project Foundation’ (Barcelona) and the Audiovisual Workshop of the University of Valencia has been essential for the creation of the aforementioned tool.

INMER

Demonstration of the Use of Virtual Reality Technologies such as the Educational Tool in Autism

A high percentage of people with autism show difficulties in understanding the imagination. When the mother or the teacher say “look how the teaspoon is turning into an aeroplane’, many of them show themselves to be indifferent and seem to neither understand nor internalise this type of imaginary transformation.

With the help of virtual reality it was possible to explicitly recreate this type of transformation. In this line of investigation the tool ‘I’m going to do it as if…’ was developed, of which 5,500 copies were distributed to different classrooms and centres that are dedicated to autism. This tool was developed with the financing of IMSERSO (Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs) and the Ministry of Science and Technology (the current Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism).