A fully accessible Arabic learning platform for assisting children with intellectual challenges

Abstract

Children with intellectual challenges (IC) are growing up with wide exposure to computer technology. Computer software and assistive devices have the potential to help these children in their education, career development, and independent living. In spite of the current spread of the use of computers in education in the Arab world, complete suites of solutions for children with IC are very scarce. This paper presents a fully accessible Arabic learning platform for assisting IC children in the State of Qatar. The platform provides four main components which are divided into learning management content, multimedia educational tutorials, edutainment games, and ontology-based learning with the aim of enhancing those children skills, understanding, communications, and memorization skills, while overcoming their obesity problems. The effectiveness of the proposed platform has been tested on IC children, and the results show clear advances on such children's learning capabilities and improved largely their performance.