Anticipa-TEA: Mobile App to Help Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder Prepare for New Situations

Anticipa-TEA is a mobile app available for Android and iOS, featuring three play modes:

• Free Mode: Children can freely explore all the areas and sounds in five settings: a birthday party, the dentist, a supermarket, a park and a hair salon.
• Story Mode: This mode builds on Free Mode by adding an audio-narrated story for each of the five settings. The story guides children through the different interactive elements in each setting, encouraging them to interact with all of them, regardless of whether they are among their favourite sounds.
• Customised Mode: An interactive calendar that parents can tailor to their child’s upcoming daily or weekly routine. Its purpose is to help children anticipate the routine for the coming week. The calendar can include the five existing settings, as well as images accompanied by real-life sounds associated with everyday activities, such as getting up, having breakfast, personal hygiene, getting dressed, going to school, eating, resting, playing and even cleaning.

Anticipa-TEA could be highly useful in healthcare settings and at home. In particular, organisations and associations specialising in support for people with disabilities and the promotion of independence could use the app as a complementary intervention tool. It could be especially useful in family-centred interventions, in which family members play an active role in supporting their children with ASD, as Anticipa-TEA includes a customised play mode suited to family use.

This project is based on the observation that children with ASD can be sensitive to changes in routine and exposure to unfamiliar environments and situations. These experiences can cause stress and lead to challenging behaviours, such as self-injury. To minimise the negative impact on both the daily lives of children with ASD and their families, gradual preparation strategies are used to help children anticipate new situations they are likely to encounter. However, a review of the scientific evidence and the mobile apps available on the market found no existing app designed specifically for this purpose.

This is one of the reasons Anticipa-TEA was developed. The app supports children with ASD in preparing for upcoming situations by simulating environments and experiences through interactive maps featuring different settings and real-life sounds. This helps reduce the negative impact that unfamiliar situations can have on the quality of life of children with ASD and their families.

Advantages:

• Visually appealing
• Real-life sounds
• Intuitive
• Easy to use
• Suitable for all audiences
• Customisable
• Multiple play modes
• A variety of settings and interactive elements
• Settings selected based on input from a multidisciplinary group of professionals
• Calendar adaptable to each family’s routines

Anticipa-TEA gives families of children with ASD the opportunity to experience upcoming situations at home or in another familiar and comfortable environment, before those situations occur. This provides an initial opportunity to become familiar with them and reduces the unexpected stimuli children may encounter in real-life situations.

Anticipa-TEA has undergone initial testing, including a pilot study evaluating usability and user experience with parents of children with ASD, which yielded very positive results. The app is currently available on the Android and iOS app stores.

• Healthcare Sector and Child Psychology/Psychiatry Clinics.
• Associations and Organisations Specialising in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Disability Support.
• Educational Institutions (to help children prepare for school events, excursions or classroom changes).
• Homes and Families of Children with ASD.

Manuela García de la Hera – Department of Public Health, History of Science and Gynaecology