Abstract

App-based psychological interventions are expected to become a new alternative for psychological services, but little is known about their usage and effectiveness in children and adolescents. This study examined the usage behavior of app-based psychological interventions created and commercialized for children and adolescents and tested their effectiveness. The researcher developed Yface (a sociality enhancement app) and Ycog (a cognitive rehabilitation app) for autistic children and adolescents, and distributed them on the Google Store for free. From the data collected for 34 months, data obtained from 196 users of Yface and 389 users of Ycog were used in analysis. The results showed that both Yface and Ycog had a 100-day persistence rate of approximately 7~13% after the first day of usage, and both apps had higher usage rates among younger users. Except for a few behaviors, there were no differences in the usage behavior of Yface. In terms of effectiveness, the autistic group in Yface showed a significantly higher improvement in responsibility under social skills than the non-autistic group. In addition, the neurodevelopmental disorder group in Ycog showed significantly greater alleviation in planning and organizational challenges than the non-neurodevelopmental disorder group. Implications and limitations were further discussed.