The project titled DEVELOPING NEW SOFTWARE FOR PSYCHOMOTOR REEDUCATION OF CHILDREN WITH AUTISM (RCA-Reeducation for Children with Autism) is planned to start on 01.06.2020 and last for 24 months. The applicant Organization is Canakkale 18 Mart University from Turkey and the partner countries are Ss Cyril and Methodius University from Skopje, Macedonia; Sofia University St Kliment Ohridski from Sofia, Bulgaria, and Piriteknoloji Egitim Hizmetleri Teknoloji ve Ticaret Adı Ortakligi from Canakkale, Turkey. The idea for this project came from a long-term follow of the implementation of psychomotor rehabilitation exercises for children with Autism. Most of the countries are having the same problem of student’s rejection while doing the activities because the repetition of exercises in front of the mirror or in front of the Special educators is boring and monotone for them. Since children with Autism are having an interest in technology and since new researchers show that learning through fun is the most effective way for permanent learnıng and memorizing, we decided to create software for psychomotor reeducation for children with Autism. Therefore, the Special Education University experts from Turkey, Bulgaria and North Macedonia will gather for the first Intellectual output, sharing experiences and knowledge about the implementation of psychomotor reeducation exercises in their countries. This output is the basis for the creation of the software, as projects second output. In order to provide more software users in the future, as third output creation of an on-line course for software use is planned. By the end of the project, a Documentary for all project activities will be created, as fourth intellectual output. The project is planned for three target groups: Special Educators and other professionals, Special Education and Psychology students and Children with Autism. The first and second target group will attend the planned multiplier events. Three multiplier events will be implemented in each country; one training seminar for Special Educators (total of 75), one training seminar for Special Education and Psychology students (total of 75), and one conference for at least 35 participants of each country (total of 105). The 3-days seminar training will be implemented in order to educate the professionals and future professionals about the importance of psychomotor reeducation for the development of children with Autism, the way of using the software and evaluation tool, and attend the online course for learning the software and implementation of the exercises. All professionals attending the first training seminar will receive one software set, so they can implement the psychomotor reeducation exercises with the children with Autism in the Special Institutions they work in. The conferences will be organized in order to increase the number of professionals informed about the project and the software. Thus, on these conferences, all experiences from the software used while working with children with Autism will be presented, together with the evaluation results of the children's progress and Special educator's pre-post testing results, in each partner country. The participants of the conference will also have a chance to see the documentary about all the project activities in the three countries. As of the last multiplier event, a final meeting will be organized for at least 45 participants, covering all the intellectual outputs and activities. The applicant organization will organize three management meetings. The first kick-off meeting will take place in Turkey. The second ‘knowledge sharing’ meeting will take place in North Macedonia when all the psychomotor reeducation exercises for children with Autism will be selected by the University experts. The third meeting will take place in Bulgaria when all the countries will share the experiences of the training seminars and conferences. By the end of the project, 300 professionals and future professionals will be informed and educated about the software and its use, 75 of them will have the software sets in their Institution and the other 225 will have the access to the software on-line. With this educated staff, at least 3000 children with Autism will benefit from the software, providing them easy, fun, joyful and motivational ways of their psychomotor development. This number of users will increase in all Special Institutions every year.
We wanted to offer efficient education for children with autism, by setting certain practices, such as providing software that is giving animated support during the realization of exercises needed for appropriate psychomotor reeducation development. With this software, we wanted to use the technology in order to create fun, active, enjoyable, and at the same time educative tool for children with Autism. It was very important for us to make it acceptable and beneficial for the psychomotor development of children with Autism because it consists of exercises selected by professionals in the field and at the same time software that is helpful for special educators because it is assisting them in finding the most appropriate exercises for their students while planning their activities, and also helping them to follow their students progress using the evaluation tool in the Software. We also prepared online training to teach the special educators about the importance of psychomotor development for children with Autism. Providing the created Software to 75 special institutions for children with Autism in three countries (Türkiye, Macedonia, and Bulgaria) was also our aim as well as informing professionals about this product.
The reason for applying for this project was to make a change in the psychomotor reeducation practices for children with Autism in special institutions, special schools, and rehabilitation centers by creating Software that will provide fun, motivational, and creative ways during the realization of exercises needed for appropriate psychomotor development. Also, my intention was to increase the competencies of the Special Educators in the field of psychomotor reeducation of children with Autism. In the past, special educators were implementing these exercises in front of the mirror or in front of the child which often resulted in rejection. My idea was to create software with an animation that will show and make the exercises together with the child. At the same time, the Kinect in the Software is analyzing the right and wrong movements and makes an evaluation for the Special educator. With this project, we provided professional help in the implementation of the exercises since all of them were selected by autism experts from the Universities in Türkiye, North Macedonia, and Bulgaria. This way, we highlighted the importance of the psychomotor reeducation of children with Autism, too.