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Project Details


Keywords: [Autism] [Children]
Name: ECHOES II: Improving Children's Social Interaction through Exploratory Learning in a Multimodal Environment
Start Date: 17th Nov 08
End Date: 16th Nov 11
Total Project Fund: 1,500,000UK Pounds
Background: Social and communication skills are important for learning for all children. The development patterns of typically developing children and children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) differ, but both groups can find real-life social interactions stressful or intimidating. This difficulty can impact on their communication and learning. Using technology to provide a means of practicing how to behave or react in specific situations can help children to develop the necessary skills to use in real-life encounters.
Description: ECHOES II aims to develop an adventurous technology-enhanced-learning (TEL) environment in which both typically developing children and children with Asperger Syndrome (AS) at Key Stage 1 (ages 5-7) can explore and improve social interaction and collaboration skills. The environment will also serve as a tool for researchers, teachers, parents, and practitioners to investigate problems that children may encounter in specific social contexts and the ways in which those problems may be addressed.
Objective: The proposed technology-enhanced learning environment will combine existing technologies in new ways. With the active participation of user groups, researchers will combine interactive whiteboards, gesture and gaze tracking, and intelligent agent-based context-sensitive interfaces to create a novel interactive multimodal environment that can be adapted to the needs of specific individuals, and that can provide new ways of investigating and supporting the development of social skills in children. The learning outcomes envisaged from ECHOES II therefore include improved ability and motivation for children to engage in social interactions, including transactional, collaborative, and conversational exchanges. Success will be evaluated in controlled studies using established metrics. ECHOES II will have the dual benefit of being a place in which learning happens, and in which learning can be studied.
Progress: Nov. 2009: The first working prototype has been completed, integrating multitouch, gaze estimation, and learning activities.
Web Page: view website
Outcome of: View: ECHOES - Exploring e-learning and communication tools for improving children\'s language usage in social interactions

Organisations Involved In This Project


The main contact(s) for this project are:

Organisation Name Type Tel Town Contact
Human Communication Research Centre - University of Edinburgh
 Academic
 0131 650 4665
 Edinburgh
 Dr Oliver Lemon

Participants:

Organisation Name Type Tel Town Contact
Dept of Informatics - University of Sussex
 Academic
 01273 678195
 Brighton
Dr Judith Good
School of Education - University of Birmingham
 Academic
 0121 414 4866
 Birmingham
 Ms Karen Guldberg
Centre for Research in Art and Design - School of Art & Design, University of Wales Institute
 Academic
 029 2041 6647
 Cardiff
 Ms Wendy Keay-Bright
Human Communication Research Centre - University of Edinburgh
 Academic
 0131 650 4665
 Edinburgh
 Ms Helen Pain
Human Communication Research Centre - University of Edinburgh
 Academic
 0131 650 4665
 Edinburgh
 Dr Kaska Porayska-Pomsta
Dept of Psychology - University of Strathclyde
 Academic
 0141 548 2581
 Glasgow
 Dr Thusha Rajendran
School of Computing - University of Dundee
 Academic
 01382 385597
 Dundee
 Dr Annalu Waller

Funding for this project includes a contribution from:

Organisation Name Type Tel Town
Teaching and Learning Research Programme
 Academic
 020 7911 5577
 London