Table 3.
Objectives and characteristics of the instruments used, ordered by frequency of use.
| Instrument | Apparatus | N | Objective | Characteristics |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TEACCH | Tech* | 08 | Promote independence among people with ASD. | Intervention based on an adaptation of the physical environment, work systems, individualized schedules and use of visual aids to facilitate daily activities and promote independence. |
| PECS | Tech | 07 | Develop communicative abilities. | Participants exchange picture cards for the object depicted to distinguish figures and make sentences. |
| RPMT | Tech | 03 | Facilitate joint attention. | Toys used to encourage the child to ask for new toys and initiate joint attention. |
| Vibrating pager | Device | 03 | Emit a vibratory signal to attract the student’s attention. | Small device to provide tactile vibration, activated by a portable remote control. |
| Intermodal preferential looking (IPL) | Device | 02 | Obtain a more precise understanding of language functions in children with ASD; measure the extent to which changes in gaze are guided by the language that accompanies an image. | Two videos are displayed side by side on an LCD screen, accompanied by speech that corresponds to only one of the videos. The direction and duration of the child's eyes are recorded. |
| LightWRITER SL 35 | Device | 02 | Help communication through auditory and visual stimuli. | Speech-generating device that provides synthesized voice output along with two LCD screens (listener and user), which provide orthographic feedback on the selected letters and words and a standard QWERTY keyboard. |
| Tablet (app not reported) and picture cards | Device | 01 | Practice orthography. | App: Images of animals and their names are followed by a children's song. The images are shown with the first two letters of the word corresponding to the image. Then, the whole word is shown. After this, the participant is asked to spell the word. Picture cards: 20 picture cards with pictures and animal names. Initially, two or three letters are shown, and they are different from those in the app. |
| Tablet (iCan) | Device | 01 | Develop communication, language and cognitive abilities. | PECS-based system that eliminates the process of creation and manipulation of paper picture cards, thus improving the convenience and portability of the intervention. |
| Board games; art projects; trivia games | Tech | 01 | Promote socialization among students. | Games were chosen by the participants. |
| Interactive Therapy System | Device | 01 | Practice skills, evaluate motor-visual coordination skills and stimulate sense organs. | System based on virtual reality technology with interactive virtual scenery: repetition of the desired tasks, step-by-step execution of tasks and visual and pictorial expression of social skills. |
| Personal frequency modulation system | Device | 01 | Improves the signal-to-noise ratio at the child's ear. | A small device in the children’s ears and a transmitter with a microphone to the teacher. The transmitter emits a sound to the auditory canal. |
| Looking-while-listening (LWL) | Device | 01 | Measure precision and latency of ocular movements. | Familiar images are displayed on the LCD screen on the wall and described vocally. A video camera records the children's eye movements. |
| Ecologic Referential Communication Paradigm | Tech | 01 | Analyze and practice communication abilities. | Information exchange about an image to build two identical pictures. |
| iPad¯ (Proloquo2Go™) | Device | 01 | Encourage communication functions through use of electronic voice output. | Software that generates synthetic speech output when screen icons are touched. |
| Microsoft Word | Device | 01 | Promote the improvement of communicative skills. | Laptop computer with physical keyboard that teaches different functions involving simple copy activities in Microsoft Word. |
| LEAP | Tech | 01 | Encourage the social interaction of autistic children. | Intervention that uses varied approaches to support children with autism, including learning activities and instructional strategies specifically designed to facilitate the development of functional skills, social interaction, language and adaptive behavior. |
| VantageTM | Device | 01 | Promote increases in natural speech production and improve solicitation rates for autistic children. | The Vantage™ is a speech-generating device that provides dynamic display and provides high-quality synthetic voice output and digitized voice output. |
| Nintendo Wii™ (Software Mario & Sonic at the Olympics) | Device | 01 | Improve the social functioning of children through the use of games in physical education classes. | Game pack used in physical education classes that used the features of the Wii Remote and Nunchuck motion sensor to control the actions of the on-screen character. The children were able to choose any of the game's activities that allowed up to four players simultaneously. |
| iPad (Zody) | Device | 01 | Facilitate social relationships in children with autism spectrum disorder. | Collaborative game that includes four connected mini-games. The game illustrates how good it is to work together with others and pay attention to what they are doing. |
| PCS | Tech | 01 | Assist the cognitive process (speed and accuracy) through figures and symbols. | A pictorial system consisting of designs that represent nouns, pronouns, verbs, and adjectives or that make use of symbol arrangements (e.g., clothing, shoes, goggles and gloves) used in the “grouped” and “distributed” arrangement with a visual search focus. |
| Target words | Tech | 01 | Improve children’s spelling performance. | Set of 12 words that were chosen by parents and teachers and divided into three subsets of four target words (i.e., four words for each of the three treatment conditions). |
| Language Master | Device | 01 | Improve linguistic and cognitive skills. | An electronic device that uses cards with a recordable range at the bottom. Each card is used to record a brief verbal message, which may also include matching visual cues such as photos, words, and PCS. |
| CompuThera | Device | 01 | Use educational software for language learning. | CompuThera is a computer-assisted therapy based on applied behavior analysis and discrete trial training procedures designed to teach cognitive skills to children with autism and visual learners. |
| vSked | Device | 01 | Help the individual to understand and structure their daily activities. | VSked is an interactive, collaborative visual scheduling system for autistic classrooms. VSked provides interfaces to create, facilitate, and visualize the progress of classroom activities around an interactive visual timeline. |
| Assistive technology devices | Device | 01 | The authors did not specify the instruments and did not describe how they were used. | |
| Sign language | Tech | 01 | Promote language development. | Uses manual communication to transmit messages. Sign language includes simultaneous hand, finger and arm movements or body orientation and facial expressions to convey the ideas of a speaker. |
Abbreviations: Number of studies (n); Autism spectrum disorder (ASD); Liquid crystal display (LCD); *Technique (Tech).