Abstract:
Autism Spectrum Disorder, also known as ASD is a neurodevelopment disorder that
usually manifests in the first three years of a person’s life. Autism tends to affect the
main areas of development, i.e., social skills, communication abilities and behaviours
of interest. They tend to not comprehend individuals around them, they do not express
emotions or happiness towards things like children usually do in their age, even if their
name is called, they might have a delay in reaction. These children fail to develop
relationships with their parents and other individuals as they have trouble
communicating and therefore, it is very crucial to provide the child with early
interventions and teachings to lead a better life in the future. However, due to certain
factors such as the lack of awareness of ASD, Lack of parental support, lack of
resources and teachers for these special needs students they don’t get what they need.
The aim of the project is to identify and analyse these problems that prevents students
with ASD from getting an appropriate education and the resources they need and in
doing so, to design, develop and evaluate a prototype which will help the students get
the needed attention and care in schools and from their parents. Thorough research was
conducted through analysis of numerous researches to gain knowledge about the
domain and to identify the requirements which would suit the solution. To get more
accurate information, teachers from special needs schools were interviewed to get their
professional opinion as well as parents of special needs children. Public surveys by
sharing a questionnaire was also conducted during this time to support the findings.
In Sri Lanka, where children with disorders are looked down on, often don’t get a proper
education for them to live a normal life as they grow old and these children are often
left alone after their parents can no longer care for their child. Hence, in order to exploit
this gap, the prototype ‘e-La’ was designed and developed. e-La is a web application
that is designed for students of age 6-12, which can be used in schools for teachers to
actively interact with the students
