ST. JOHN’S, NL – A group of student computer coders are losing sleep so that parents of autistic children can rest easier.
Members of Memorial University’s Computer Science Society (MUN Comp Sci Society) are in the midst of a 48-hour ‘Codeathon’ to help parents of children with autism connect with Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) therapists.
Volunteers began coding Sunday at noon, and will conclude exactly two days later. More than 20 students have volunteered for the project.
This is the first Codeathon undertaken by the MUN Comp Sci Society. Mark Gauci, the project manager for the Codeathon, says the idea to create a project that benefited the local community came from Tim Oram, the society’s president, during its first meeting.
“As a mature student and father of a child with autism, I asked if it would be possible to create an online tool to help facilitate the matching up of ABA therapists and the parents of children with autism.”
Gauci says that parents of autistic children face three main problems when it comes to finding an ABA therapist: making first contact, aligning schedules and assessing compatibility with their family.
The ABA Lookup app solves two of these problems. Parents will be able to search for ABA therapists using filters like gender preference, certification and schedule availability.
“The main gist of the program is to provide a place for both therapists and parents to create a profile, put in their desired schedule for therapy and then conduct a search based primarily on said schedule,” says Gauci.
Once completed, the project will be given to the Autism Society of Newfoundland and Labrador for use on their website. The underlying computer code will also be made freely available for open-source development.
Gauci says that the community’s response has been amazing.
“As a parent of a child with autism, to see such skilled and generous young men and women really is quite touching.”
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