Deliberate System-Side Errors as a Potential Pedagogic Strategy for Exploratory Virtual Learning Environments

This paper describes an exploratory study of system-side errors (i.e. expectation- or rule-violations) in a virtual environment (VE), and the subsequent reactions of young children with autism spectrum conditions (ASC). Analysis of existing video from 8 participants interacting with the ECHOES VE showed that they frequently detected and reacted to system-side errors, engaging in social and communicative behaviours targeted by ECHOES. Detecting errors requires children to compare the VE's state to their mental model of its behaviour, determining where the two are discrepant. This is equivalent to learners identifying mistakes in their own knowledge and then re-aligning with the system-as-expert. This paper explores the implications of these results, proposing a taxonomy of discrepant event types, and discussing their location with respect to the learner and/or system. In addition to considering these results' significance for this user group and context, it relates the research to existing work that uses erroneous examples. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Embedding novel and surprising elements in touch-screen games for children with autism: creating experiences “worth communicating about”

Relative infrequency of communication initiation, particularly initiations that involve attention-sharing or other social purposes, appears to negatively impact the later-life outcomes of children with autism. Strategies to improve or encourage initiation skills in autism are hampered by the need for the behaviour to be spontaneous (i.e. unprompted by a partner). One potential approach that addresses the spontaneity issue is to extrinsically motivate initiations by changing aspects of the child’s environment such that they merit, or even demand, initiating a communication. Detecting subjectively inconsistent (i.e. discrepant) aspects in game-like virtual contexts appears to be something that inherently interests young children with autism, and can motivate them to initiate spontaneous, positive communications. Initial evidence for discrepancy as a communicative motivator came from a study which re-analysed video data from an existing autism and technology project (ECHOES), illustrating that a heterogeneous group of children all reacted frequently and socially to naturally occurring (i.e. unintentional, non-designed) discrepant aspects within ECHOES. A set of high-level design principles was developed in order to capture “lessons learned” from ECHOES that might facilitate re-creation of a similar pattern of spontaneous, positive initiation around discrepancy. A second, proof-of-concept study implemented these design principles in a set of three new touch-screen games (Andy’s Garden) that sought to establish, and then deliberately violate, child expectations (i.e. provide discrepancy-detection opportunities: DDOs). Children reacted socially and positively to the new games and DDOs. The results of this study allow us to answer its overall questions affirmatively: it is possible to motivate children’s communication–specifically, their initiation–by including deliberately-designed DDOs in a set of games. These findings are the first step towards determining whether discrepancy-detection opportunities may form a component of a future technology-based communication skills intervention, capable of changing children’s initiation behaviour outside of a game context

Better together: advancing family-centered care

Family-centered care (FCC) is recommended as “best practice” across a variety of pediatric service settings, as it yields better health and wellness outcomes for clients, and greater work satisfaction for practitioners and administrators (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2012). However, providers in multiple health care fields report challenges with translation of FCC concepts into their practice (Bamm & Rosenbaum, 2008; Graham, Rodger, & Ziviani, 2008; Lawlor & Mattingly, 1998; MacKean, Thurston, & Scott, 2005). Therefore, the aim of this doctoral project was to understand the barriers to FCC implementation, and to propose ways for supporting practitioners to enact FCC in their practice. The resulting solution is Better Together, an on-line professional development course designed to empower health care providers to become ambassadors of FCC and effectively enact the FCC practices in their daily interactions with clients and their families. The Better Together course content and structure are based on findings from a review of the literature specific to identifying core skills and knowledge essential for effective FCC practice, as well as best practices for professional development instruction. Methods for course implementation, funding, and dissemination are described, as well as a research plan for program evaluation

Incorporating Social Media into the Classroom: A Case Study on How TikTok can be Immersed into Classroom Pedagogy

My research project focuses on the use of TikTok embedded within classroom pedagogy and how it can be used as a tool to support academic and social emotional wellbeing. There is a lack of research investigating how social media can be incorporated into the classroom to make up for potential academic losses, including the inevitable social/emotional needs of adolescents that need to be addressed due to the ramifications of COVID-19. In my research, I question ways in which students see this tool as supporting their wellbeing, in what ways parents see this tool as supporting their child\u27s wellbeing, and why TikTok is unique to successfully building a community. This project offers valuable insights into Generation Z on a deeper social-emotional level through fieldwork observation notes, surveys, and interviews with students and parents. My findings show that social media and classroom curriculum can work in tandem as a tool to increase engagement and support social emotional wellbeing and academic success. The TikTok application requires demonstrating 21st century skills, enhances social relationships, and builds a connected classroom community. Finally, this project’s findings demonstrate how educators can support the whole child through using tools such as TikTok to help provide social emotional support for highly anxious students. In the words of one participant, TikTok “makes everyone feel like they belong.

Gifted Education, Creativity and Leadership Development

In these uncertain and challenging times, we need to help gifted students find their purpose and work toward finding a passion in their work and life. These new perspectives are both brilliant and practical and represent a synthesis of wisdom and experience. The new perspectives address the need to identify and nurture diverse students using scenarios and simulations and an active involvement in observing differentiation to learn how to identify and serve gifted students. We have unpreceded opportunity, with access to technology, to engage in collaborative research and program development across disciplines and internationally. In conclusion, there is deep wisdom here for gifted students, their parents and teachers, who can all benefit from exploring these new perspectives

Playful E-textile Sonic Interaction for Socially Engaged and Open-Ended Play Between Autistic Children

Research on the potential benefits of technology for autistic children is an emergent field in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), especially within the Child-Computer Interaction Community. This thesis contributes a design approach grounded in theories of play, cognitive development, and autism to expand the discourse on methodological guidelines for performing empirical studies with non-verbal autistic children and to extend the design space to cater to the socio-emotional and sensory needs of this population. The thesis reveals how sonic e-textile Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) can be used effectively to mediate children’s social participation in playful activities. This is demonstrated through developing three explorative field-studies conducted at a specialist school based in North-East London where two sonic e-textile playful TUIs, namely Mazi and Olly, have been created and tested with three groups of autistic children aged between 5-10. The three studies ran over the period of three years and were designed to investigate the potentials of TUIs as shareable toys during leisure and recreational activities to a) support social and playful interactions among peers and b) provide opportunities for self-regulation. The key contributions of this thesis are the designs of two tangible user interfaces, which offer a set of design approaches to guide researchers through creating shareable and playful tangibles for non-verbal autistic children; a framework for analysis and a thorough evaluation process that other researchers could use to assess the efficacy of playful TUI designs for nonverbal autistic children; and an in-depth discussion about the research process, which offers a new perspective about holistic designs and evaluation of technologies that aim to scaffold play in groups non-verbal autistic children

Elements of a theory of social competence : socio-cognitive and behavioral contributions in typical development

L’être humain évolue quotidiennement au cœur d’un monde social hautement complexe auquel il est singulièrement adapté d’un point de vue évolutif. L’individu qui navigue de façon adéquate, parmi les situations et les interactions sociales, y parvient grâce à une machinerie cognitive sophistiquée et spécialisée connue sous le terme de « cognition sociale », composée d’un ensemble de fonctions acquises durant le développement et permettant la perception, le traitement, l’interprétation et la réaction à des stimuli sociaux dynamiques et nuancés. Le développement social serait sous-tendu par le fonctionnement cognitif global (p. ex. le fonctionnement intellectuel, le langage, la mémoire, l’attention, les habiletés visuoperceptuelles), ainsi que par des habiletés sociocognitives spécifiques (p. ex. la théorie de l’esprit, l’empathie, la reconnaissance des émotions faciales, la prise de perspective, l’attribution d’intentions, le raisonnement moral), le tout assuré par un ensemble de structures et réseaux neuronaux connu sous le terme « cerveau social ». Malgré les connaissances empiriques suggérant une association entre les facteurs neuronaux, cognitifs et environnementaux du développement social, notre compréhension des interactions dynamiques et complexes entre les habiletés sociocognitives, l’influence externe de facteurs environnementaux, ainsi que leurs impacts individuels et combinés sur le développement social typique demeure préliminaire. L’objectif général de cette thèse était d’étudier deux corrélats principaux qui sous-tendent la compétence sociale durant le développement, soient la cognition sociale et le comportement social. Le modèle SOCIAL (Beauchamp & Anderson, 2010) est utilisé comme cadre théorique et empirique pour explorer de multiples facettes du développement de la compétence sociale et des liens entre les habiletés sociocognitives (p.ex. le raisonnement moral et la prise de perspective) et le comportement social global. La première étude explore la contribution des aspects cognitifs (théorie de l’esprit) et affectifs (empathie) de la prise de perspective au raisonnement moral et au comportement social des enfants et des adolescents neurotypiques. Un outil novateur d’évaluation du raisonnement moral, le Socio-Moral Reasoning Aptitude Level (So-Moral), fut utilisé pour rehausser la valeur écologique du construit. Ainsi, des dilemmes sociomoraux quotidiens ont été présentés aux participants, qui ont également complété des mesures de théorie de l’esprit, d’empathie, et de comportement social. Les résultats suggèrent que les aspects cognitifs (théorie de l’esprit) et affectifs (empathie) de la prise de perspective contribuent conjointement à prédire la maturité morale chez les enfants, mais pas chez les adolescents. Par ailleurs, certaines lacunes au plan du raisonnement moral seraient associées à des instances plus fréquentes de comportements externalisés, mais aucun lien entre la maturité morale et les comportements prosociaux n’a été détecté. La théorie de l’esprit contribuerait de manière significative à la maturité du raisonnement moral chez les enfants, suggérant l’importance d’une évaluation cognitive d’une situation sociomorale. Comme les facteurs prédictifs du raisonnement moral différeraient chez les enfants et les adolescents, il est possible que des mécanismes sous-jacents distincts soient impliqués. La deuxième étude documente l’association entre les facteurs externes, tels qu’opérationnalisés par le temps hebdomadaire passé à jouer à des jeux vidéo, et le comportement social. Cette étude vise également à comprendre les liens entre l’usage des jeux vidéo, la cognition sociale et l’adaptation sociale chez des enfants du primaire. L’étude révèle que les enfants qui passent moins de temps à jouer à des jeux vidéo par semaine tendent à exhiber plus de comportements prosociaux. Toutefois, aucun lien n’a été identifié entre la fréquence d’usage de jeux vidéo et les comportements mésadaptés. Il est donc possible que les interactions sociales complexes, réelles et face-à-face soient particulièrement importantes au développement des compétences sociales chez les enfants. De façon globale, les données de la thèse contribuent à établir un portrait plus complet des relations complexes et dynamiques entre la cognition sociale, les expériences sociales et le comportement social lors du développement typique. Les résultats offrent des pistes novatrices quant à l’approfondissement des connaissances théoriques, empiriques et cliniques au sujet du développement social, et fournissent des fondements empiriques pour soutenir l’élaboration de programmes d’intervention et d’outils d’évaluation de la cognition et de la compétence sociale.Humans are characterized by species-specific social skills and interactions, which direct much of their behaviors, dictate thought processes and form the foundations of human consciousness and reality. These social abilities are highly complex and intricate, involving a large range of developmentally acquired skills allowing the perception, processing, interpretation and response to dynamic social stimuli. The fine-tuning of these diverse abilities across the lifespan contributes to an individual’s social competence, allowing the navigation of the social world. Smooth and adaptive social development is supported by core cognitive functions (e.g. intellectual ability, language, memory, attention, visual-perceptive skills), as well as by specific skills (e.g. theory of mind, empathy, emotion recognition, perspective taking, intent attribution, moral reasoning) referred to under the umbrella of “social cognition” and subsumed by neural structures and networks of the “social brain”. Despite strong evidence supporting the associations between neural, cognitive and social functioning, much remains to be learned about the interplay between socio-cognitive abilities during development, the external influence of environmental factors, as well as their individual and additive impact on social behavior. The main objective of this dissertation was to study two manifestations of social competence in typical development, namely, social cognition and social behavior. The SOCIAL model (Beauchamp & Anderson, 2010) is used as the theoretical and empirical framework providing fertile ground for the investigation of multiple facets of the development of social competence and a better understanding of the global interplay of socio-cognitive skills (e.g., moral reasoning and perspective taking) and social behavior more broadly. The first study explores the contribution of cognitive (theory of mind) and affective (empathy) aspects of perspective taking to moral reasoning and social behavior in typically developing children and adolescents. An innovative neuropsychological tool for assessing moral reasoning, the Socio-Moral Reasoning Aptitude Level (So-Moral), was used to enhance the ecological value of the construct. Everyday socio-moral reasoning dilemmas were presented to children and adolescents to evaluate their moral maturity, and assessments of theory of mind, empathy and social behavior were also completed. Jointly, both aspects of perspective taking (theory of mind and empathy) predicted moral reasoning maturity in children, but not in adolescents. Poorer moral reasoning skills were associated with more externalizing behavior problems across the age span, but no associations were found with respect to prosocial behavior. Theory of mind skills were independent predictors of moral reasoning, suggesting that a cognitive understanding of the situation may be especially useful when children are asked to reason about a moral conflict. Contributing factors to moral reasoning differed in children and adolescents, suggesting differential underlying mechanisms. The second study investigates the contribution of external influences, as operationalized by time spent playing video games, to social behavior. A secondary objective was to add to the growing body of literature exploring associations between video game playing, social cognition and social behavior, in an age group less frequently focused on (elementary school-aged children). The main results of the study indicate that children who spend less time per week playing video games have greater prosocial tendencies, but no association was found with behavior problems. Findings highlight the possibility that real-life, complex, and nuanced social interactions outside screen-based play may be central to fostering social competence skills in children. Overall, the results of the studies presented in this dissertation contribute to building a more comprehensive picture of the complex interplay between social cognition, social experience and social competence during typical development. Findings offer new avenues for improving theoretical, empirical and clinical knowledge of social development and provide an empirical basis for the development of social skills intervention programs as well as social cognition assessment tools