A team of researchers led by a Qatari professor is developing a bilingual online platform to provide remote learning access for children with autism, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, reports Gulf Times.
“We are working to develop technologies within three months to help children with autism in their learning process,” disclosed, Dr Dena Ahmed S al-Thani, the project lead and assistant professor in the College of Science and Engineering at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU).
“It is an online education platform and it is important now as children are forced to stay home due to Covid-19 and learn online. Such a technology will help children with autism learn, understand and engage better,” she explained.
The project ‘Mixed-Reality Interactive Educational Platform to Support Remote Learning for Children with Autism’ by Dr Dena and her team was recently awarded a grant under the Rapid Response Call (RRC) by Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF), a Qatar Foundation entity to complete the project in three months’ time. RRC enables researchers to develop rapid solutions to mitigate the impact that Covid-19 on different sectors in Qatar.
Dr Dena said that children with autism used to have one-to-one access with their therapists but it is not possible in the present situation as there are no physical classes.
“Now we are developing technologies to help them access education remotely using virtual reality, mixed reality and augmented reality. We use specific technology that we have developed at College of Science and Engineering. This is the continuation of what we have been engaged in. We have been working on such technologies for the past four years and have published various research papers,” explained Dr Dena.
“Our idea is to develop a highly functional prototype and we have already started the project. We have the capacity to complete the prototype by the end of three months and we have the team ready and working on it,” she continued.
The research grant under RRC will contribute to the development of this platform on a fast-track basis, so it can be deployed on an urgent basis in schools and other centres that offer educational services for children with disabilities.
