Which Virtual Piano Keyboard for Children with Autism? A Pilot Study

Music can be a powerful therapy for many conditions, including autism syndrome. Technology is usually intrinsically attractive for children with autism, who often interact with apps on tablets and smartphones. It can offer structured, repeatable, and coherent training tools, customizable according to the student’s need and preferences. Although many apps for rehabilitation of children with autism are available, only a few of them are accessible to students with autism spectrum disorder due to complex interaction environments, the high number of items, and inappropriate stimuli offered. Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, no apps are available for teaching music to people with autism. The Suoniamo project aims to fill this gap by designing an accessible app for teaching piano playing to students with autism. Customization is a key feature when teaching persons with special needs, even more so if dealing with the complexity of the autism spectrum disorder. This paper describes a pilot test with four adolescents with autism, aimed at evaluating the usability of the Suoniamo app user interfaces for the piano keyboard in three different configurations.