The effects of AI-assisted teachers designing adaptive teaching programs on reading comprehension of the students with autism spectrum disorder in senior high school

The main purpose of this research was to investigate the effects of "AI-assisted Adaptive Teaching Programs"on reading comprehension of students with autism spectrum disorder in senior high school. An experimental design was adopted. The subjects were over 180 first grade students with autism in senior high school selected from Taoyuan of Taiwan. Through Holland Vocational Aptitude Test, the subjects were divided into six type groups. Six type groups, namely, investigative type group, artistic type group, social type group, enterprising type group, conventional type group, and realistic type group, would individually receive the adaptive teaching program in which designed by artificial intelligence. Before implementing the programs, the teachers would check the suitability of the programs and the groups. The reading comprehension ability of the subjects were measured before and after the programs. The data obtained were analyzed by t statistics to test the effect of the programs. Due to the first grade of the senior high school students will enter school in September, this was the pilot study. We found as follows: the AI-assisted Adaptive Teaching Programs showed significant effects to improve the reading comprehension ability of the senior high school students. We hope it will be effective for all six type subjects. The findings showed that artificial intelligence can be a helpful tool for teachers to design the programs which meet students' needs. The results would help teachers to reduce the time of preparing teaching courses. In the future, researchers or teachers can use artificial intelligence to design programs for the students with special needs.