A rule-based reasoning technique on mathematics tutor design for children with autism

• Main Author: Ruslan, Siti Nur Azrreen
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: Q Science (General); QA Mathematics
• Online Access: http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/20542/1/A%20Rule-Based%20Reasoning%20Technique%20On%20Mathematics%20Tutor%20Design%20For%20Children%20With%20Autism.pdf; http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/20542/2/A%20rule-based%20reasoning%20technique%20on%20mathematics%20tutor%20design%20for%20children%20with%20autism.pdf; http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/20542/; https://plh.utem.edu.my/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=105829

Autism is a complex developmental or neurodevelopmental disorder which also affect in learning difficulties (Aliee et al., 2013; Ge and Fan, 2017). Even though autism can cause a variety of challenges, individuals diagnosed with autism also have potential, skills, abilities and talents (Understandautism.org, 2016). Therefore, it is important to search for an effective intervention that can help and improve the lives of the individuals with autism (Lindgren and Doobay, 2011) such as Computer-Assisted Intervention (CAI). Most children with autism use visual elements to help them maintain information (Meadan et al., 2011) besides the parents and doctors often indicated that children with autism are attracted to technology tools. Thus, selection of the suitable fonts, colours and images for the CAI is important to ensure that CAI can help students with autism to stay focus and engage throughout the lesson. Besides that, the selection of suitable technique is also important to ensure CAI present suitable learning material according to students with autism skill level. Therefore, this study proposed to develop the Mathematics Tutoring System (MTS) using rule-based technique, and to examine the effectiveness of MTS in helping students with autism to study the concept of addition in mathematics. Thus, an experimental case study was employed to gain data from the participants. The participants were divided into two groups, the intervention and the control group. The data obtained from the experimental case study were analysed using the Mann-Whitney Test to determine whether there is a significant difference between both groups before and after the experiment. According to the results, the value of (U = 11.50, p<0.05) obtained using the Mann-Whitney Test shows that there is a significant difference between the intervention and control group. In other words, the result shows that method used by intervention group is a more effective method than the control group. In conclusion, the MTS can help the students with autism to learn maths addition skills because the methods used such as images, animations, and sounds helps participants to memorise the lesson besides attracting them to participate and engage during the lesson. Besides that, the MTS can represent a controlled environment which makes students with autism feel comfortable in which may improve their maths skills together with the problematic behaviour.