Development of Software that Supports the Improvement of the Empathy in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism is a developmental disorder characterized by a decrease in social interaction, communication, creativity, imagination and organization of daily living activities of those who have this condition. Empathy is a skill related to understanding the feelings of other people, which is an important element of social relationships. Currently in Chile there are no software applications that support the development of empathy in autistic children by taking advantage of the characteristics of multi-touch devices. For this reason, this study presents the development of such software. Due to the specific characteristics and needs of the target user, the User Centered Design methodology was used to guide the design process. This article presents the stages of the design process and describes the developed application. We also discuss the lessons learned during the process.