Abstract:

The national universities of Argentina have the highest educational level of the country and stand out for being public, free of charge, of free access, autonomous and co-governed. The Argentinean university education system has been acknowledged by international organizations such as UNESCO and UNICEF. The National University of La Plata (UNLP) is one of the 53 public universities of Argentina, and one of its main goals is to contribute to searching for answers to social issues, mainly those involving vulnerable sectors of society. In this framework, university education and knowledge are seen as public and social goods, which is why policies realizing concrete lines of action must be established in all sectors and roles of educational identity.

This paper presents the joint work carried out by teachers and students of two subjects of the B.S. in Computer Science of the Computer Science School. The proposal consisted in the production of a digital communicator aimed at children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) attending the non-governmental organization CEDICA (Centro de Equitación para Discapacitados y Carenciados).

This work involves the development of a digital communicator for tablets, based on customized pictogram catalogues that allow the child to indicate their mood, functional needs and other intentions through “tactile” interaction. This application communicates through available network connections with the computer of the CEDICA therapist, sending all the interactions of the child and allowing for conclusions to be drawn in order to formulate new activities for them. The communicator can adapt to and be used in different environments than CEDICA, such as home, thus assisting the child in communicating with their family. It works on the Android operating system and has so far been developed at a prototype scale. The user interface models were designed at the “User Centered Design” subject. The children, their families and the therapists participated in the design process. Afterwards, students and teachers of the “Software Laboratory” subject took the design and implemented the communicator and the complimentary application using Java for Android and JSE (Java Standard Edition) for the desktop application. A Fine Arts student participated in this project producing the pictograms, following the guidelines that resulted from meetings between the teams of both subjects and CEDICA members. The implemented prototype was validated by therapists and is currently being tested with the children and their family members.

This experience is deeply rewarding: from the academic viewpoint, developing the communicator in itself was a very valuable educational practice; from a social perspective, we value the immersion in a community in which the communicator constitutes a powerful educational tool in treating disability, and from a moral perspective, teaching and gaining ethical values in being in contact with vulnerable communities and helping them with the tools of our discipline is a highly rewarding experience. Students achieve high levels of commitment which make them become involved and learn new ways of influencing and modifying the reality of those surrounding them as well as their own.