Задача этого некоммерческого проекта заключалась в том, чтобы создать приложение, позволяющее проводить образовательные занятия для детей с РАС, а их родителям — изучать полезные материалы по проблематике и иметь возможность оперативно связываться с экспертом-реабилитологом. Важно было сделать приложение дружелюбным по отношению к пользователю, а процесс мониторинга состояния ребенка для последующего определения корректной методики лечения — гибким и удобным.
Подробнее https://globus-ltd.ru/projects/kognitenok
***
As of 2020, there were over 30,000 children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) in Russia, and, unfortunately, this number is expected to grow. Most children with special needs, as well as their families, experience tremendous challenges in adapting to everyday life, being outdoors, in kindergarten and at school.By now, there are very few organizations in Russia and abroad that specialize in the rehabilitation of children with ASDs. In addition, there are even less methods that imply the use of information technologies to care for children having such special needs.The Globus team has already implemented some social projects; one of the last called Platinum Volunteer being a unique mentoring system for people with disabilities. In this situation, we also could not pass by and decided to apply our expertise for the benefit of children with special needs.PurposeThe purpose of this non-profit project was to design an application that offers educational classes for children with ASDs and provides their parents with useful materials to study on the subject and enables them to promptly contact an expert rehabilitation therapist. It was important to make the app user-friendly and to make the tracking of the child's condition flexible and convenient to further determine the correct therapy method.SolutionOur partners from OOO GEMMA (a company specializing in the design and development of social and rehabilitation software products and solutions) approached us with the idea of such an app.Together with GEMMA consultants and experts on ASDs, we have developed the Cognitenok mobile application launched on the Android platform.Cognitenok facilitates the interaction between the therapist, parent and child having an ASD. By virtue of the developed functionality, the app enables to:Provide the opportunity for rehabilitators to quickly access patient data and remotely track and digitize the results, dynamics and effectiveness of the ongoing rehabilitation and habilitation.Establish immediate communication between parents and specialists, enabling them to promptly receive feedback and consultations from doctors and rehabilitation therapists. This is extremely important for families living in remote cities and villages, where the nearest expert on rehabilitation of children with ASD can be found 1000 kilometers away from their home.Hold developmental classes for children with mental disorders using modern techniques aimed at developing cognitive brain functions. Together with experts, we have developed over 120 tasks, including text templates, graphics and arithmetic problems that develop various brain functions. And our designers and illustrators specially for this project have created a unique cartoon character, Cognitenok, and 10 mini comics about his exciting adventures. The Outcome:The most important social function of the Cognitenok application is to increase the availability of rehabilitation and habilitation services and to reduce their cost.Besides, the app has several unique features:A cartoon character specially designed for this project and 10 mini comics about his exciting adventuresOver 50 task text templatesOver 45 graphic imagesOver 30 arithmetic tasksA library of links to useful Internet resources in the domain of habilitation and rehabilitation of children with ASDsBuilding a base of knowledge, tasks and recommendations for parents of children with ASDs, updated regularlyTechnology StackKotlin, Java, MySQL The app is already available on Google Play. We intend to enhance its use on the iOS platform. The app has recently been put to a test by parents and rehabilitation experts. Based on the feedback received from users, rehabilitation therapists, parents, children, and after processing all received requests, individual blocks and application modules would be finalized. Konstantin Andreev, Globus Commercial DirectorFor us, this project is non-profit, but crucial, as it addresses a social problem of great concern. Our team of developers, illustrators and designers did their best to make the app the most convenient and useful particularly for parents of children with ASDs. To attain this, we had to gain a great deal of insight into the topic. We sought advice from the specialists of the Vremya RASsveta Charity Foundation (translator’s note: Russian charitable foundation established to help children with autism spectrum disorders, created by mothers of children with special needs), who clued us in on autism in general, on the peculiarities of how children with ASDs perceive information and on the functionality that they would like to see in the app. Olga Stepanova, General Director of OOO GEMMA Today there are only a few programs that would allow tracking the dynamics of progress or, conversely, regression of a child with mental disorders. It is important that this was not limited to a subjective opinion of some expert, but that all indicators and results of observation of the child would be summarized in a data table. The opinion of an expert must be justified by figures. I can remember only one such app, and now the Cognitenok has come along.