an emotion regulation app for school inclusion of children with ASD

The inclusion of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in mainstreamed environments is critically impeded by their difficulties in self-regulating their emotions. We present the design and evaluation of a tablet-based application dedicated to supporting children with ASD in self-regulating their emotions. This system relies on well-proven (paper-based) emotion-regulation interventions, made by therapists and parents. To identifying both the design principles and mainstreamed-environment constraints, we adopted a participatory design. Preliminary results are presented relative to five children with ASD (and five control ones) who have used our system during three months in mainstreamed schools. They suggest that not only is our system successfully used autonomously in mainstreamed classrooms, but it is also efficient in supporting children to self-regulate their emotions, allowing them to sustain mainstream inclusion.