The use of Augmented Reality in the educational learning process of children with cognitive disabilities

Abstract

With education being declared a vital human right, it is becoming more important than ever to establish and implement engaging teaching methods within the various schools and learning centres present in most children’s daily lives. This is especially important for children that attend these schools who have some disability which hinders their ability to follow the more general approaches used to teach in classes nowadays. This however, does not, and should never, obstruct their potential to learn in equal amounts – albeit in a different way. Specialised teaching methods have been recently developed and focused upon to ensure that these children are able to live as independently as possible. Efforts to realise these methods have been aided by several technological advancements within the ICT industry. One of these technologies is Augmented Reality (AR), which is able to help educators such as Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) and Learning Support Assistants (LSAs) teach abstract concepts which are generally found to be tedious when being taught by educators to children with cognitive and learning disabilities. Apart from instilling active involvement and interest during a child’s learning process, AR has been found to be beneficial in its ability to construct an environment that facilitates consistent engagement from its participants. Moreover, participating Pathologists have provided very positive feedback to introducing such tools during their therapy sessions with clients, highlighting the potential of Augmented Reality and other technologies to be used for further tasks of understanding and inclusion, with the tablet application providing added engagement and motivation to the learner.