Effectiveness of digital illustration to develop social skills of special needs students in general education classes

In this study is to investigate whether social skill learning programs developed according to digital illustration technique are effective for developing the social skills of special needs children. After the applications were complete, permanence effects were investigated after seven, fourteen, and twenty-eight days. Additionally, generalising effects were investigated by using different tools and stories. In this study, social validity forms were created by obtaining views of teachers of the students regarding the application. In the study, multiple survey models were used from single-sample research models to multi-sample survey subjects. Dependent variable of this study was learning levels of target participants of target social skills, and independent variable of this study was program based on showing written storied and drawn illustrations related with target social skills. For this application, 3 target social skills were selected. Related with these skills, 12 different social stories, and 60 illustrations were created. Illustrations and social stories were created under supervision of an expert. The education sessions were delivered individually to each student. Participants of this study were two 8-year-old students with special needs student diagnosis. These students were involved in inclusive education in second grade. The findings of this study showed that digital illustrations offered with tablet computer were effective to help special need students to gain social skills. Furthermore, it was observed that, these students were able to preserve targeted social skills seven, fourteen, and twenty-eight days after the program, and could generalise with different tools and stories. Additionally, teachers of these students were asked to evaluate teaching offered on tablet computer using social validity form, and positive view data was obtained from these forms.