Aplicação de diretrizes de acessibilidade no desenvolvimento de um aplicativo para comunicação e socialização de crianças com TEA

Abstract

This paper presents the development of the TinoTEA application, a solution aimed at supporting the communication and socialization of autistic children in the school context, based on accessibility guidelines for people with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The research aimed to design and implement an application capable of assisting communication through pictograms and speech synthesis, considering the cognitive, sensory, and behavioral characteristics of the target audience. The methodology involved a bibliographic review on autism, Augmentative and Alternative Communication, assistive technologies, and accessibility, in addition to mapping the Guidelines of the Accessibility for Web Interfaces for people with Autism into functional and non-functional requirements. Development was carried out using the FlutterFlow platform, featuring a low-code approach complemented by Dart code for specific functionalities. The system was structured into four main modules: Authentication and Registration, Communication, Configuration, and Parental Supervision. The communication module allows the selection of categorized pictograms, including audio playback and sentence construction. The configuration and supervision modules enable visual customization and control of sensitive functionalities. The results demonstrate that the solution has the potential to promote accessibility, predictability, and organization in interaction, aligning with the adopted guidelines. However, the lack of validation with real users constitutes a limitation of the study, indicating the need for future evaluations in real usage contexts. It is concluded that TinoTEA represents an initial contribution to the development of assistive technologies focused on the communication of autistic children.