A Quantitative Approach to Understanding the Mind of Children with Special Needs

The Process of Data Acquisition

In the data acquisition phase of our research project, children with and without Autism of ages four through twenty years were assessed meticulously on different parameters based on their responses to three different games. 19 children were part of this study of which 12 subjects were from regular school settings and 07 subjects were from special school. The three key parameters which have a higher order of precedence among others are time, accuracy and difficulty. It was initially decided to test them in a computer environment. Children with special needs, that include Autism among others, exhibit a higher degree of unfamiliarity in working on a computer. Hence games that are not played on a computer were chosen for the analysis. For a fixed number of trials, readings of time, error and accuracy were recorded for each of the games. The tests were conducted in the presence of trainers at special school.