=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2730/paper25
|storemode=property
|title="TED": teaching educational device, a digital tool to educational practice for special needs
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2730/paper25.pdf
|volume=Vol-2730
|authors=Salvatore Vita,Angelo Rega,Luigi Iovino,Andrea Mennitto
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/psychobit/VitaRIM20
}}
=="TED": teaching educational device, a digital tool to educational practice for special needs==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2730/paper25.pdf
“TED”: Teaching Educational Device, a digital tool to ed-
ucational practice for special needs
Salvatore Vita1, Angelo Rega2, Luigi Iovino1, Andrea Mennitto2
1 NeapoliSanit s.r.l., Italy
2 Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Napoli, Italy
info@neapolisanit.net
Abstract. Literature shows as new technologies can aid different professional
figures who work in various educational fields, from schools to rehabilitation.
However, in a Landscape of technological tools, today many technologies are
abandoned or used with little frequency and poor clinical interest by teachers and
therapists. TED was born with the need to be an all-inclusive tool, which allows
the teacher/therapist, in a clear and specific way, to manage all aspects concern-
ing the educational programming of the student with Special Educational Needs
(SEN), from the initial evaluation phase to final phase, concerning the results of
the personalized didactic action. Taking advantage of specific algorithms, which
with the help of AI change over time becoming more and more precise, TED
offers the user the opportunity to work on the fundamental areas of the individu-
al's life (problem behaviors, academic skills, relational skills, etc.) and lends it-
self to be a complete tool for operators (in education, health, and school) who
work with special needs daily.
Keywords: technology, educational practice, teacher.
1 Introduction
The role of technology in special education has increased over the last 20 years [1].
New interactive technologies in terms of smart mobile devices and accompanied appli-
cations (apps) attract increasing attention in various fields: preschool, school, early-
primary education, occupational therapy [2–4]. Teachers and operators that work in
Educational settings as school or rehabilitation centres face every day with the manage-
ment of children and young people with special needs (SEN) [5] and there is a great
interest in new technologies as a source of help for educational practices [4]. The term
Special Educational Needs was born in the 1960s from the dissatisfaction with the ter-
minology (not always appropriate) of Handicapped children and above all as a need to
support the increase in the differentiation of the difficulties of children at school (due
to the expansion of diagnoses and the advancement of research) [6].
SENs, as shown over time, affect different areas ranging from communication, educa-
tional processes, instrumental learning, problem behaviours. various researchers have
faced various challenges by tackling problems individually or working on multiple ar-
eas at the same time. However, even today, the gap in the resources offered to the
School and other educational contexts and real needs are far from being filled [4].
Copyright © 2020 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
2
Nevertheless, new technologies have made a great contribution to various educational
figures [7–9]. In recent years, a great resource has allowed a leap forward in new tech-
nologies: artificial intelligence (AI). With AI we refer to a computer algorithm capable
of accomplishing tasks that generally require human intelligence, such as creating pic-
tures, songs, and writings [10]. The field of artificial intelligence (AI) has come a long
way since the term was first coined by a group of researchers in 1956 [11] and its fields
of application have grown enormously, ranging from medicine to physics up to reha-
bilitation [12]. There are many types of AI, including the subfield of Machine Learning
(ML). ML approaches enable computers to create predictive algorithms and to learn
without any explicitly programmed rules, i.e. learning through experience from new
datasets. Deep-learning approaches are a subset of ML-based on artificial neural net-
works that mimic how the nervous system processes information [12].
The literature offers us numerous insights into the implementation of new technologies
as a form of support for SNs (from neurodevelopmental disorders to simple special
educational needs) [7, 13]. Numerous increasingly sophisticated Speech-generating de-
vices (SGD's) have facilitated communication processes, extending the Augmentative
and Alternative Communication (AAC) area [14, 15]; Various educational software
founded for instrumental learning [16, 17], for working with children with autism [18–
20] for working on attention [17, 19], for recording and decreasing problem behaviours
have been developed and many are available on the app-stores. A lot of these apps are
supported by AI.
However, in the literature, no software or hardware guarantee a "total" take-over of the
student: a tool that ranges from the initial diagnosis to treatment and that accompanies
the educator, teachers, the therapists for the entire didactic path/rehabilitation.
This paper aims to illustrate the functionality of TED: TED is an educational tool that
allows you to describe the educational and didactic interventions intended for pupils
with developmental disabilities starting from a single and already created assessment
for special educational needs. TED allows the teacher/therapist, in a clear and specific
way, to manage all aspects concerning the educational planning of the pupil with Spe-
cial Educational Needs (SEN), from the initial to the final evaluation phase concerning
the outcomes of the personalized didactic action. The role of technology in special ed-
ucation has increased over the last 20 years.
2 TED
TED is conceived as a real tool, which goes from evaluation, passing to monitoring to
finally arrive at programming (consisting of real external apps that can be incorporated
into TED) to offer an overview of procedures that can be used by the user at any time
to carry out adequate programming. The programming itself and the procedures imple-
mented will not be freely chosen by the user, but will be selected by the same tool based
on the previously compiled evaluation to offer a supervised practical guide that leads
to the expected result.
3
TED involves all the figures involved in the life of the pupil who attends school: for
this reason, the use of the same is borne by both the support teacher and the curricular
teachers.
TED becomes an integral part of the educational-didactic planning both in the class-
room and in rehabilitation centers for pupils with special needs. The assessment of the
pupil with TED is carried out at the beginning of each school year and subject to veri-
fication and reassessment every four months or as needed. "TED" is not immutable, but
it is a tool that allows an integrated analysis of the specific teaching objectives and of
the areas involved during the same school year both to evaluate their effectiveness and
monitor learning and to allow for the modification of educational programming taking
into account the results achieved by the student, to update or confirm the objectives and
to adapt it to needs that emerged during the school year.
The educational path of a pupil with disabilities requires differentiated programming
that sets specific and personalized objectives not necessarily adhering to ministerial
programming but rather based on a criterion evaluation: in this case, the TED allows
you to carry out a single evaluation through a questionnaire created ad hoc by our team
that provides for the integration of various diagnostic tools.
Through an on-boarding procedure an evaluation test is carried out (owned by us, which
will be described below) following which the following are automatically defined:
- specific areas of teaching,
- for each area, objectives for programming will be proposed,
- for each objective, a series of individualized teaching procedures and evaluation cri-
teria will be suggested. The part concerning the procedures must be structured in such
a way that the text of the procedures can be updated independently of the app through
a download system of additional information. The system will also allow you to add
other procedures, allowing you to reuse those already existing but placing constraints
present only in the text.
2.1 Development and evaluation
TED is a personal mobile application. It requires a username and a password for the
user to log in.
An internet connection is not required but is needed to synchronize local data with the
server's database instance and share outcomes with the clinical team behind the app.
The application is developed as a Progressive Web Application (PWA) in HTML5 and
React. The server part is managed by a Linux - Python - PostgreSQL stack.
The tool guides the user through the entire process: once logged in, it is possible to fill
in the student profile, starting from the personal information to move on to personal
information (diagnosis, communication skills, scholastic skills, possible pharmacolog-
ical treatment, etc.).
Once the preliminary information has been filled in, the user can complete the ques-
tionnaire “Easy Life”: Easy Life is set up as a semi-structured questionnaire which, by
integrating the knowledge and requirements of the questionnaires ad AFLS [21],
ABBLS-R [22], VB-MAPP [23], has the purpose of collecting relevant information
4
about the skills possessed by the subject and outlining the teaching objectives of the
learning areas with a deficit. The test consists of 420 items and is divided into 7 macro-
areas (each of which has 4 different macro-areas) which represent the fundamental ar-
eas for correct scholastic insertion and good quality of life.
The questionnaire can be re-administered and updated every six months, to evaluate the
progress of the ongoing programming.
Based on the TED assessment, educational goals and objectives are identified and in
particular educational, socialization, and learning objectives related to the different ar-
eas, which can be pursued during the school year also concerning class planning. The
objectives for each area are prescribed and included in the school/life planning by the
teacher/therapist herself, being able to choose which are the priority ones to implement
for her pupil.
The teacher/therapist himself will have a monitoring system at his disposal to capture
all the variables necessary to build an adequate program.
Finally, on the same device, it is possible to access a basic calendar (monthly, weekly,
3 days, daily) in which to view the specific programming for each student. The sched-
uling, also organized by time slots, allows you to view in writing both each specific
objective that you have chosen to implement my teaching area, but also the procedure
to be implemented associated with that objective, i.e. a detailed and methodological
explanation to clarify how to operate following well-specified indications, and the pos-
sibility of evaluating the latter daily through a rating system.
For each objective it is also possible to check the active or inactive status and dynami-
cally insert, through photos, the specific activities carried out.
Once the evaluation phase is over, the user will be redirected to the "activity planning"
phase where, depending on the chosen objectives, there will be educational procedures
based on applied behavior analysis (ABA) [24] and the main cognitive-behavioral the-
ories for SENs.
The procedures can be textual (created tailored to the objectives) or they can be real
external Apps that are integrated into TED: this allows the tool to be an innovative
multifaceted platform that over time allows the integration of external components that
enrich its functionality and performance.
2.2 Data recording and AI
During the use of the procedures, the user will have several data recording and a rating
system available that will allow the teacher/therapist to monitor the processes and add-
ing data over time.
Indeed, data collection is a fundamental component of TED: thanks to an AI-based
pattern recognition system, all the information collected by the various users allows
TED to enrich itself with new information and improve over time, becoming more and
more fluid and precise in the choice of objectives and the programming of the interven-
tion.
5
3 Conclusion
New technologies are now a well-established reality within educational contexts
(school, rehabilitation centres, etc) and the literature is full of cases in which these have
proved to be irreplaceable and ergonomic tools. Communicators, pedagogical apps,
learning software, represent a new way of conceiving teaching, especially for those
segments of the population that require greater support and more flexible educational
processes, such as the SEN. The heterogeneity of the SENs creates great difficulties
towards the educational pedagogical figures, who need adequate tools to face the vari-
ous daily problems (problem behaviours, personal autonomy, learning difficulties).
New diagnostic criteria and the greater interest in the creation of innovative educa-
tional/didactic paths give strength for new opportunities that are well suited to the use
of New Tech. TED was born to intercept the need for an all-encompassing tool that
helps and guides the operator throughout the didactic/educational path and that has a
real impact on the student's life, allowing him to achieve meaningful outcomes or the
goal of any figure who work with disabilities or special educational needs.
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