We coordinate the AMUSE project

AMUSE is an Erasmus+ EU Funded Project.

AMUSE project is being developed by a multi-sectorial team, including researchers from the two participating universities (IRTIC Institute at Universitat de València and Faculty of Psychology at the University of Bath), teachers and families from the four schools involved (three from Spain: Mare Nostrum School at Valencia, Gabriel Pérez Cárcel at Murcia, Aucavi Foundation at Madrid; and one from Turkey: and Maresal School at Konya) and continuous training institutions from regional governments (CEFIRE from the Regional Government of Valencia, Spain, and Konya Il Mem from Turkey).

From AMUSE Team we consider that autistic people must have the opportunity to gain access to a wide range of education modalities, so that the alternatives available are flexible enough to match different learning profiles. Autism Units integrated within mainstream schools are a very valuable alternative and, with AMUSE project, we want to promote the interchange of good practices from teachers and other professionals working in this area. We fully respect other modalities of schooling and we appreciate very much the work developed by professionals working on them, when autism specific provision is guaranteed and when inclusion is fostered.

AMUSE will produce three main results:

O1: A website for interchange of good practices between professionals (this www.autismunits.eu website).

O2: A MOOC Course for spreading good practices for autism units. A link to this massive open online course will be included here when it becomes available.

O3: A research study to determine the profile of students who benefit the most from this model of schooling. A link to the research paper will be included here once it has been published.

You can find out more information about the project here.

We will participate in the Asperger Syndrome VI conference, in Alicante.

The first of October we will expose a communication in the Asperger Syndrome VI  Conference, in the University of Alicante.

The communciation is "Technology application to improve the quality of life of persons with Asperger."

We expose the SMART-ASD and the ETIC project in the XI Autism Europe International Congress

We participate in the XI Autism Europe International Congress through two communications.

The first one is about the ETIC project, and the second one is about the SMART-ASD project, still in development.

We will hope you enjoy the congress.

We participate in the National Congres of Asperger Syndrome in Gran Canaria

On February 19 we talk about technology and Asperger syndrome, describing the Infoaccesible project and the problems facing people with AS at the University. The congress is celebrated in Tafira, Gran Canaria from February 18 to 20.

Emodiscovery, a free fun interactive game designed to help in the emotions understanding.

Emodiscovery is a free fun interactive game designed to aid children (8-12 year-olds) in their understanding of others’ emotions.

The app aims to teach and train children’s emotion regulation skills in regards to others through stimulated interactions between the user and a virtual agent.

The SMART-ASD project starts

The SMART-ASD project is an initiative financed by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission, destined to improve the education and communication of students with autism and/or learning difficulties, with the help of innovative technologies.

The main objective of the project is the development and experimental evaluation of software and protocol to support professionals and relatives involved in the education of children with learning difficulties, who will learn to decide the most adequate technologic solutions in each case.


The project partners are:

Universitat de València, Autism & Learning Difficulties Group (IRTIC), Conselleria de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, Generalitat Valenciana, Autismo Burgos “El Alba” School, Fundacion Aucavi, “Aucavi” School, Mira'm Fundació, “Mira’m” School, Santcristòfol School, Konya Il Milli Egitim Mudurlugu (Konya Government), Turkey, Necmettin Erbakan Üniversitesi, Turkey, Selcuklu Ogr Fatma Menekse Ozel Egt Is Uygulama Mer, “Fatama” School, Turkey, Ataturk Ilkokulu. “Meram” School, Turkey, University of Bath, United Kingdom.

We present the Infoaccesible project

On thursday 29th, at 18.00, we will present the project Infoaccesible.

 Infoaccesible is a web page wich two main goals:

 - The first one is to help people with Asperger Sindrome through a more accessible University.

 - The second one is to describe the Asperger Sindrome to the pupils and the professors of the University, in order to a better undestanding of their colleage/pupil.

The Infoaccesible website is

http://campusinfoaccesible.blogs.upv.es/

 The project will be presented in the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, in the Conference "Designing the society in 360º" Go to the Conference web site to get more info.

Telefonica Inclusion IT Award

Lorena Taberner, member of our team, has received the Inclusion IT Award from Telefonica.

Her work, in the Inclusive Contents project, gives support to the teacher of an inclusive and educational center by uysing Artificial Intelligence to suggest the adequate activities in function of the capabilities of the pupils.

We participate in the XIV National Congress of AETAPI.

We participate in the XIV National Congress of AETAPI.

On the 25th anniversary of AETAPI, our group goes to the Congress of this prestigious professional association of autism.

The congress will take place in Bilbao and San Sebastian, from 12 to Nov. 15, 2008.

On November 14 we will do presentations of our tools : miradasdeapoyo.org and Tic-Tac.

Neurofeedback to 'Retrain' Brainwaves in Children with Autism

Guy McCormack, a researcher from the University of Missouri, has carried out a study where many people with autism have played a video game called Space Racer, to win the game the player only needs to concentrate and pay attention. Researchers measure the brain activity by placing sensors on the scalp, the game changes in function of the brain activity, due this, the player needs to pay attention to the game to win it. The game consists in maintain some rocks on the screen while a sound is reproduced in the system, whenever the attention wanes, the rock goes down, changes its colour and the sound stops. Guy McCormack says "We are trying to awaken their brains. Often children with autism disconnect and we want to use neurofeedback to teach them how it feels to pay attention and be more alert. We want to teach them to regulate their own brain function"

Souorce: The Inquirer (Spanish), Science Daily (English), U. Missouri (English)

1. 
   

Tic-Tac: watches for people with autism

The Autism and Learning Difficulties Group are finalising the details of the ‘tic-tac’ tool which will be published in the weeks ahead and which has been designed to enable people with autism and/or learning difficulties to understand and manage the concept of time more easily in situations where they have to wait, to indicate available leisure time, to indicate the time which we have to carry out a task, in situations which can produce sensorial overload and in other situations which are thought to be useful.

Robots for social inclusion

The European project IROMEC (IST-FP6-045356) is intended to prevent isolation and dependence of children with disabilities and help them to develop their potential and new skills by means of an environment focussed on play that is backed up by robots that assume the role of social mediators and that can be adapted to the individual characteristics of each user. More information: http://www.iromec.org/