An open-ended tangible environment for disabled children's learning

In the domain of disabled children learning, requirements are heterogeneous and ever changing, because of these learners' peculiar characteristics and the nature of their educational needs. Technology for this complex problem space should be highly flexible, evolvable, and easy modifiable to address the developmental, emotional, and cognitive level of each single child. The paper describes an open-ended environment that supports the creation and customization of tangible learning experiences for disable children learning and meets the above requirements. The toolkit implements an End User Development paradigm and a Meta-Design approach, as educators, teachers and therapists, can use it autonomously, without depending on skilled programmers. In its current version, the system is a model-based and pattern-based web application framework, and has been iteratively designed, prototyped, and evaluated along a period of three years in partnership with therapists and teachers at a local primary school.