A Multimedia Distance Language Assessment System for Preschool kids

A Multimedia Distance Language Assessment System for Preschool kids with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This system is an improvement of the past system that was used in previous research. For the demand of future research and the increasing size of the sample size, the technical challenges, occurred in the past system that associated with internet problems, have to be solved. The limitation of the resources such as professionals in special education (teachers), time, space, and cost will be considered in designing this system. Moreover, the need of distance assessment for prescreening children with ASD also related to the difficulties for ASD kids to get used to a new environment such as early invention center, school, and hospital. This study will focus on overcoming the technical challenges associated with the internet-based transmission to provide the option of taking tests remotely and to broaden the application of the assessment. Therefore, this paper has designed a distance system that use cloud server system to solve the limitation of server storage and slow Internet connection. Webcam function also is included to direct and instruct the students in conducting the assessment and teacher can record whole assessment progress to collect the data.

The system architecture of the legacy system is shown in Figure 1. The assessment web pages contain 6 types of language assessment [1]. Both visual and audio subtests are utilized to measure the discrepancy between responses between subtests and for the early identification of the children’s language-learning characteristics (i.e., visual or auditory). Some of the test results can’t be stored through the Internet to the server and in a remote database, which are wished to be accessible by the early childhood special education professionals. These functions can’t work well due to the lack of server capacity and slow Internet connection. The future updates of the assessment software also can’t be downloaded via Internet. Although this assessment tool was initially to be built on the platform of the World Wide Web to accommodate test-taking from remote locations (e.g., from home), which could alleviate the potential anxiety experienced by the test subject resulting from taking tests in unfamiliar surroundings.

However, due to the challenges encountered with the actual transmission of the assessment over the Internet, the great majority of samples were collected from off-line tests at early intervention centers, hospitals, or schools. For the same reason, the real-time interaction (consulting and recording the frequency and duration of testing) between the test subject and the test administrator at remote locations aided by the interactive web design and a Webcam cannot be operated as initially planned, either. We can conclude that, the problems in the legacy assessment system, Lin et al. (2013) is slow due to computer hardware, internet and flash loading [1]. Without a camera, it is hard for professionals to analyze the problems that occur during the assessment process and analyze the reactions of each student. Low storage capacity for recording and transmitting the data is also hard for the professionals to collect the data. Finally, score calculation function is not working due to the software programming bugs. In the other hand, the limitation of the resources such as the number of professionals in special education (teacher), time, space, and cost will also be considered in designing this Distance Assessment System for ASD. Moreover, hopefully this system can help parents in saving time cost to visit early invention center, hospitals, schools, or professionals in special education to conduct the assessment. The need of distance assessment for prescreening children with ASD also related to the new environment. It is difficult for them to get used to a new environment such as early invention center, school, and hospital in a short time to conduct the assessment.

DISTANCE ASSESSMENT SYSTEM: This study will focus on overcoming the technical challenges associated with the internet-based transmission to provide the option of taking tests remotely and to broaden the application of the assessment. Nowadays, distance learning has become a new way of learning and conducting assessment through the cloud system and widely used tablet computers. The problems that occur in the legacy system, like the Internet technical problems and client-server system, are predicted to be solved easily. The contents of the assessment material will be downloaded from the cloud server as an app into the mobile devices. The app can provide the assessment process without physically connecting to the Internet and transmit the results when a communication channel is available. This type of program is light-weighted and will be designed to be user-friendly to the children with ASD. Moreover, hopefully the assessment process can proceed regardless of time and location. Applying the distance assessment system with mobile computing technology to this assessment tool hopefully will be a good option for future system development. To improve and ensure the quality, formative assessment is one of the important measures to ensure the learning quality in modern distance education [7]. Therefore, in this system we try to design a distance assessment system that the professionals in special education can monitor and guide the students in conducting the assessment system anywhere, see Figure 2.

SYSTEM DESIGN AND ARCHITECTUR: The System Design Concept and Architecture A Multimedia Distance Language Assessment System for Preschool kids uses the web application architecture to develop a cross-platform system. The front-end (client) is a web-based user interface, and the cloud (server), is the web servers and databases. The database is connected to the cloud service and the front- end user interface also connected to the cloud service. The assessment questions and results of each user are stored in the cloud system database as shown in Figure 3. Through the distance assessment system, parents just need to download the app in their tablet computer that contains assessment contents and whole application functions at home. Parents can also accompany their children to conduct the assessment at home without dealing with unfamiliar environment problems. Through webcam streaming functions, the teacher can monitor and controlling the assessment progress from a school, hospital, or anywhere the teacher can access the Internet. Moreover, teacher can decide to record the whole assessment progress with this system.

This allows the teacher to access the assessment results of individual case anywhere and anytime with Internet connection. The platforms that the teacher will use are laptop or desktop computer, see Figure 4

GUI Design Concept The GUI Design concept hopefully can attract the children with ASD with clear and simple interface. A user- friendly function and operation are also considered since our aim is ASD children, see figure 5. The student and parents can see and talk to the teacher directly through the video and audio streaming function. Teacher also can do instructions to conduct this assessment directly through the video and audio streaming, and text messages, see Figure 6. C. Functions and Information Technology The server will be an information management platform on Internet in a cloud, for high speed audio/video streaming and storage. Low cost system developing tool, such as JSP, tomcat, Apache, and MySQL database will help decrease the cost of this research. The client side is and app, which should be free. The cross platforms client will be designed in both iOS and Android platforms with HTML5 as a compatible browser.