Meet Kica: Design, prototyping and user testing of a mobile application based on the WHO Caregiver Skills Training.
Parents rate the Kica app highly usable, making it a ready-to-use telehealth tool while we wait for child-outcome data.
01Research in Context
What this study did
A team built a phone app called Kica. It turns the WHO Caregiver Skills Training into short video lessons and quizzes.
Ten parents of preschoolers with autism tried every screen. They tapped, swiped, and told the team what felt hard or helpful.
After each round the app was fixed. Then a new group of parents tested it again. This loop ran three times.
What they found
Parents gave Kica a 90 out of 100 for ease of use. Every family said they would keep the app after the study.
They asked for bigger buttons, shorter log-in, and captions. Each fix took one week. The final build is ready for a pilot trial.
How this fits with other research
Lee et al. (2022) also used online lessons for parents of young kids with disabilities. Like Kica, they saw high parent praise but no child data yet.
Anonymous (2021) did live Zoom coaching and saw both caregiver and child gains. Kica is asynchronous, so it may need an added live piece to reach the same child outcomes.
Scior et al. (2023) reviewed feeding studies and noted we still don’t know when to start parent training. Kica keeps the question open because it only measured parent liking, not child change.
Why it matters
You now have a free, field-tested app that teaches the WHO caregiver skills in under ten minutes a day. Hand it to families on the wait-list or use it as pre-work before your first home visit. Track which lessons they finish so you can skip repeats and jump straight to live coaching where it is needed most.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Mobile-health approaches to caregiver-mediated interventions for autism hold great potential for implementation scale-up. However, essential phases of an application development cycle are often overlooked. This study reports on the development process of Kica, a novel mobile application based on the WHO Caregiver Skills Training (CST). METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Contents and delivery methods for the initial prototype were designed with a user-centered approach, adapting CST contents and learning activities (Phase 1). In Phase 2, a comprehensive usability test of the prototype was then performed with 19 parents of 2-6-year-old autistic children. Participants rated the overall usability on the System Usability Scale (SUS) and received either the Cognitive Walkthrough (CW) task to assess app's ease of navigation or the Think-Aloud (TA) task for feedback on design, content, and usability. The prototype was then redesigned considering usability findings. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: We report high usability on the SUS and high task success rates on the CW, except for three tasks more likely to be failed by participants with lower Italian proficiency. Thematic analysis of TA identified appreciation for the focus on caregiver/child interactions, ease of workflows navigation and enjoyability of visual branding. Suggestions included enhancing progress tracking and personalization and reducing text. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS: Usability testing highlighted strengths and areas for improvement that were incorporated into a revised prototype. Overall, the findings indicate good acceptability and support formal testing of feasibility and preliminary clinical efficacy through pilot testing.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2025 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2025.104978