Development of the “Let’s Understand Emotions” Application for Students with Autism

Abstract

This study aims to develop the "Let's Understand Emotions" application as a learning medium for students with autism in recognizing emotional symbols. Students with autism often have difficulties in language, communication, and emotional expression, so they need media tailored to the needs of students with autism. This application is designed with interactive features such as videos explaining emotional symbols, sounds, images, exercises, and games to introduce emotions in an easy-to-understand way. This study uses the Research and Development (R&D) method with the PPE ( Planning, Production, Evaluation) model, which includes planning, production, and evaluation. Data were collected through validation questionnaires from media, material, and autism experts, as well as one-to-one trials on three students with autism at SD Islam Alam & Sains Al-Jannah. After going through a series of validations and trials, the validation results showed that this application was feasible to use, with a feasibility score of 82% from media experts, 73% from material experts, and 100% from autism experts. The trial on students obtained a score percentage of 89%, indicating that the application is very suitable for use in learning students with autism to recognize emotional symbols.