The effect of mobile learning-based enriched digital activity schedules on development of symbolic play skills in children with autism

The aim of this study is to develop a "Symbolic Play Teaching Program with Digital Activity Schedules" (SPTP-DAS) for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), to evaluate the effectiveness of the instructional design on the symbolic play skills of a child in early childhood with ASD, and to include the opinions of educators involved in the program design process. SPTP-DAS was developed based on Brown and Green's (2016) instructional design process, which consists of three main stages: needs assessment, implementation, and evaluation. In the needs assessment phase, the opinions of 16 teachers who had worked with children diagnosed with ASD for at least one academic term were collected. These teachers were employed at a special education institution based on Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), located in a socioeconomically advantaged district of a metropolitan city in the Marmara Region of Turkey. The study was designed using a multi-stage mixed methods approach. To evaluate the effectiveness of the instructional program, a multiple probe design across behaviors one of the single-subject research designs was employed. The findings indicated that SPTP-DAS was effective in teaching symbolic play skills to a child with ASD through mobile learning-based enriched digital activity schedules. The findings indicated not only the effectiveness of the program in enhancing symbolic play skills in children with ASD but also revealed high levels of satisfaction among the educators involved in the process. Furthermore, it is suggested that the widespread adoption of SPTP-DAS would make a valuable contribution to curriculum development for children with autism.