Assistive Technologies

Today I'm going to discuss assistive technologies specifically focussing on how they are helping children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. As the name implies, ASD is a spectrum disorder, so it could be expressed in a lot of different ways for different people. As such, it has been challenging to create devices and supports that help those with Autism without being able to be different for those along the spectrum. Assistive technologies is defined as a device or system that allows individuals to perform a task that they would otherwise be unable to do. Through some of these devices that have helped those with Autism find a voice and a place, it has helped others see that those with Autism know more than they realized. One such device is known as the Picture Exchange Communication System which helped children communicate when they otherwise had great difficulty doing so. The system has a set of pictures that children can place to act as words. With the help of technology, this system has been moved onto a much easier and quicker to use device, the iPad. Now, children with ASD can easily use iPads to communicate their needs and ideas.

Here is what the PECS looks like on the iPad

Robots have become another technology created to help children with ASD. The robot is a social robot programmed to help develop communication skills, social competencies, express and perceive emotions and interpret natural cues from others. Those who trained with the robot improved their imitation eye contact time with the robot throughout the study. Robots are becoming an increasingly important tool in improving children with ASD's social capabilities. Not only training with a robot but also practicing skills in a virtual world have been shown to help. Practicing real-life situations in virtual environments created a safe place for children with ASD to become comfortable when the real-life situation happened, such as transitioning into the new classroom at the beginning of the school year.

Here is a child interacting with one of the robots designed to help those with ASD

The classroom is also an important place where assistive technologies can be a great aid for children with ASD. Teachers who are mindful of the interests of their students can increase the engagement of those with ASD and help them succeed. Such as a student who increased his attitude and lessened his anxiety towards reading when he was able to use google to search what he was interested in and create his own little books online. Taking the time to engage students with their interests vastly improved their capabilities. If taking student interest into account helps those with difficulties improve, it makes me wonder what the types of things typical children could do if they were allowed to follow their own interests in the classroom as well. All in all, technology has been an incredibly helpful feature for children who struggle with every day tasks and should be continued to be used to improve children with ASD in their daily lives.

Health, Safety, and Netiquette

Web safety is on most worrisome parents' minds when it comes to their children being on the internet. Are they stumbling onto inappropriate things that they shouldn't? Are they going to be stalked by some creepy person who's going to lure them out and kidnap them?  It has become a great concern to teach children how to use the internet properly and intelligently. As such, safety and netiquette need to be taught to those venturing onto the ever increasingly accessible internet starting in school at young ages. Cyberbullying, as mentioned in previous posts, is a form of bullying done through forms of technology as a way of distancing the victim from the bully, making it much easier to dole out insults and ridicule. Cyberbullying has been seen to overlap with traditional bullying. So one hasn't replaced the other, both tend to happen. However, cyberbullying can have more inadvertent negative outcomes such as contributing to depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation, more-so than with traditional bullying. Perhaps this is due to the nature of the bullying in that it feels like something that can't be escaped. Technology and ways to reach social media are all around us now, even if you turn off your computer, what's to stop a text then? It's unreasonable to think that adolescents can just shed themselves of any technology or social media. Adolescents need to be taught coping strategies and social media netiquette in order to feel prepared when things happen that might be hard to deal with. Or to prevent it from happening in the first place, they should be reminded that there are real people with real feelings at the other end of that messaging board or text message. I think sometimes it's hard for teens to put themselves in another's shoes, so netiquette should be taught to help with that while using social media.

Here is a video of Korean school children learning about netiquette and internet use.

Safety is also a concern with young people and their phones, which have become as attached to the young adult as an extra limb. Dangerous behaviors such as texting and driving is fairly common to young people. Although most agree that it is dangerous and should be illegal, most adolescents and emerging adults have also admitted to doing it. Researchers found that those that have permissive attitudes towards these behaviors was related to increased recklessness and that those lower in mindfulness reported more frequent texting while driving. So what gets them to stop? It was found that only past behavior predicted intentions to both send and read texts while driving. So, really, only if it caused them a problem. Adolescents were most focussed on the norms, which is that, well, everyone texts and drives, so it must be ok. These dangerous behaviors pose a risk that should be discussed. The campaign to stop it is going in a direction that is simply not hitting adolescents where it counts and this should be reviewed.

Sexting is another issue that teens and emerging adults commonly face that relates to their relationships and how they use their phones. Here is a short clip summarizing the issues involving sexting.

It's important for young people to think about how and why they are sexting, not just that they are doing it, considering those in healthy relationships also sext. However, it can also be for other reasons that are not so healthy. Those who sext should check in with their comfort levels and make sure they feel safe and secure in their relationship.

Social Media

Ah, social media, the emerging adult and teenage alike's favorite pass-time. Keeping up with everyone else's business like it's your business. As well as celebrities you love to hate, pictures of everyone's food, because that's a thing, and pinning crafty projects you wish you would actually find the time to do, but know you never will. Social media has become such a large part of young people's lives, researchers are beginning to study the effects it might have on behaviors of adolescents and emerging adults. It turns out, social media can be something to be wary of but also beneficial in some ways. I'll start with the not so nice things. Cyberbullying has become prevalent as teens use social media more and more. On top of classic bullying, cyberbullying can end up stinging more because the bullies can be anonymous, or simply because there's a disconnect to the person the bully is hurting, it allows them to be more vicious than in real life. That anonymity though can also allow victims to become perpetrators right back. Social media sites such as Facebook can give people skewed perceptions of others as well, where we tend to perceive others are happier than we are, making our lives seem bleak and sad in comparison. Not only that, but Facebook users have easy access to photos that promote the thin ideals and therefore increase their body surveillance. On the positive side, communicating through social media makes for better social interactions. The act of practicing, editing, and changing what you're going to say helps communication between peers. Also communication with peers is more diverse through social media sites.
Here is an interactive photo about social media and Facebook.



Social media can even start to tell us about someone's personality. Researchers have found that individuals who are more open use social media more. Narcissistic people also have an increased use. Social media also reflects our cultures. Cultures outside of the US tend to self-disclose much less than we do on social media sites, believing that positing accomplishments is a form of bragging. This parallels collectivist cultures' focus on promoting the group instead of individual characteristics.

It is becoming quite interesting seeing how we are shaping social media and, more importantly, how social media is shaping the views of our world.

Educational Technology

Educational technology has become more commonplace with the use of devices in the classroom as well as the countless educational apps for young children. The idea is to use technology as a way to make learning look a lot more fun. So is it working? At this point it's sort of like yes and no. It seems as though educational technology has a lot of potential to do a lot of good, but isn't very good at it as of yet. When a school was given one-to-one laptops, at first there was a great increase in motivation to use the laptops for learning in the classroom. But, over time, there was a significant decrease and the students couldn't help but do what we all do with laptops in the classroom, use them for anything but taking notes. The teachers found they couldn't control students' unproductive use and so interaction with the material lessened. A more promising finding noted that students should be involved in what they're working on. Students who constructed an educational game, rather than just playing it, ended up being more interested and involved. They were also more engaged when they got to play with their friends and be social. Students were also more wiling to do tedious work if it meant they got to level up in some kind of virtual game world. So it seems as though there are aspects of technology that can be used in the classroom to do some real work, but aren't getting as utilized as they probably should. This is probably due to teachers not being up-to-date on these kinds of findings. Teachers should know what works and what doesn't with students, including technology uses.

Moving out of the classroom, e-books and e-games are more enjoyable than their low-tech counterparts. I'm left to wonder why this might be, even when the low-tech versions have the same content. Is it that they're more interactive? More attractive? More colorful? Probably all of these. Why would you want a boring version of a book or a game when all it does is sit there when you could have one that talks to you, moves around, or has funny sound effects? I also wonder if it also has to do with today's children's need for constant stimulation. Have we become so socialized by technology that now anything less would just be too boring to have in our lives? I think that's all find when it's just games, but what about times when we need to be doing something boring? Not everything in life is exciting. Like writing essays, or hearing long lectures, or cleaning the bathroom, but we have to do them. No wonder it takes so much grief and checking something more entertaining like watching cat videos every five seconds just to get through a paper. I'm always left to wonder, what could I have done with all that time I lost not doing what I was supposed to in the first place...

Video Games

Owning a video game console has become almost as essential as owning a television. With all the features consoles now have, it's not just for hardcore gamers anymore. But those that game often and play the most violent games seem to be creating the most concern. And according to research, those concerns aren't without some validation. Those that had significant exposure to violent and aggressive video games tended to be more aggressive in real life. Also, violent video games can create a sort of desensitization to violence in general. Those that were exposed to the violence in video games seemed to care less about other violence they saw in real life. This can be quite concerning, especially for a parent. What seems to be most important to keep in mind is paying attention to the rating label on games and checking the games your kids play for yourself. I grew up playing video games with my brother, but our mother never let us play games that were out of our aged rating range.

The second issue gamers face is controlling how much time they actually spend gaming. Video game addiction has become a real problem, and it's not just in the US. It has become such a serious problem in South Korea that they have included it in an official category of addictions and have video game addiction camps for those who can't control how much they game to go to. Researchers even found that problem gamers had lower grades and showed more anxiety than non-problem gamers. More than that, other significant health problems including pain and sleep problems have been associated with addicted gamers. Although I consider myself a rather casual gamer, I certainly have known those who can't control their gaming habits. My brother would always rather play his games than do his homework growing up. WoW (World of Warcraft) is among what I think is one of the worst games for addictions, I've personally known people who have failed out of college because of it, my ex-boyfriend included. It made it really difficult to be in a relationship when he could never leave the computer. Because of this, I worry for addicted gamers social lives. Although I know they meet a lot of friends while gaming in their virtual worlds, what does it do to their real lives outside of those virtual worlds? It leaves me to ponder what people's social interactions will look like in some years from now.

Robots

Are these what come to your mind when you think of robots?

Simple right?
Robots are becoming much more than the typical nature in which you'd see them on a sci-fi movie. Robots can build cars, they can assist people who have difficulties, and they can even look just like real people. This may be the most jarring aspect of robots today for most people. An unassuming person looking in the face of a realistic robot may have an internal sense of panic. Is it real? It's just a robot. But it looks so real! This is getting very freaky. I put a lot of thought into why this is so unsettling for a lot of people (probably myself included). As the robots become more realistic looking, more human looking, the line between what's real and what's not becomes more and more blurred. Our brain does not like this. Our brain is more organized than at least I could ever be in real life, maybe that's why my room is such a mess, my brain is taking all my organizing powers. And our brain likes the categories that it made starting from very early on. A banana food, this piece of wood is not food. My brother is alive, my toy doll is not. It's kind of like that really uncomfortable feeling you get when you can't help but sit and stare at someone until you've decided on whether they are a boy or a girl. That's probably just your brain saying "hey, I'm trying to categorize you, fit into my box". So when robots have reached this so-called "uncanny valley", that almost indistinguishable appearance between a fake and a real human, I think our brain starts sizzling a bit at trying to categorize what it sees. Perhaps it would be different for children growing up as with these life-like looking robots who can make a sort of separate category for them as they are young and creating the categories for their life. It's unclear what may happen in the future of robots. What will happen when we may have to stop and think twice if someone is a real person or not?

I mean put some clothes on this robot, and could you really tell? Hmmm.

Tech Toys

"Teched up" toys seem to have become a necessity in children's toys. It seems it is almost impossible to not find a toy that makes a noise or lights up, or tries to proactively to be "educational". This, of course, does not come without any major concerns. Some common beliefs are that tech toys distract children from real play and that it may confuse children from what is alive and not. The optimistic bunch often believe that it teaches children valuable skills and increases their comfort with technology. Research, although somewhat scant in certain areas, has shown mixed reviews of the effectiveness of technology. Overall, it seems that technology may have the potential to enhance children's learning, particularly in their familiarity with technological objects in our increasingly technology dependent world. However, there have been some pitfalls with the way that toy companies seem to be using technology in their toys. The component would most likely make technological toys most effective is the very thing that they seem to be lacking- parent interaction. A study where researchers looked at the differences between mothers and their toddlers playing with electronic toys vs non-electronic toys showed that when playing with the electronic toys mothers were less engaging and less responsive to their toddlers. Perhaps this is due to the fact that electronic toys seem as though they do all the work for you, such as reading the words aloud in an electronic book. Or perhaps parents are merely unsure of how to use electronic toys with their children. This is quite the downfall considering children, especially of this young age, learn the most when their parents interact with them and they have the social aspect in their play. I think tech toys have their potential, once they fine tune and really find the most effective ways to engage both the child and the parent in play for learning. Until then, I would be wary of if certain tech toys are actually doing what they claim to be promoting.