P for Politics D for Dialogue: Reflections on Participatory Design with Children and Animals

Participatory Design strives to open up the decision-making process and empower all those who may be affected by design. This is opposed to Design as a non-participatory process, in which the power to make decisions is vested in the hands of one group to the possible detriment of others. In this paper we interrogate the nature, possibilities and limitations of Participatory Design through the perspective of Child Computer Interaction (CCI) and Animal Computer Interaction (ACI). Due to the cognitive and communication characteristics, and to the social and legal status of their participants, researchers in these communities have to contend with and challenge existing notions of participation and design. Thus, their theories and practices provide a lens through which the nature and goals of Participatory Design can be examined with a view to facilitating the development of more inclusive participatory models and practices

Automating autism: Disability, discourse, and Artificial Intelligence

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems shift to interact with new domains and populations, so does AI ethics: a relatively nascent subdiscipline that frequently concerns itself with questions of “fairness” and “accountability.” This fairness-centred approach has been criticized for (amongst other things) lacking the ability to address discursive, rather than distributional, injustices. In this paper I simultaneously validate these concerns, and work to correct the relative silence of both conventional and critical AI ethicists around disability, by exploring the narratives deployed by AI researchers in discussing and designing systems around autism. Demonstrating that these narratives frequently perpetuate a dangerously dehumanizing model of autistic people, I explore the material consequences this might have. More importantly, I highlight the ways in which discursive harms—particularly discursive harms around dehumanization—are not simply inadequately handled by conventional AI ethics approaches, but actively invisible to them. I urge AI ethicists to critically and immediately begin grappling with the likely consequences of an approach to ethics which focuses on personhood and agency, in a world in which many populations are treated as having neither. I suggest that this issue requires a substantial revisiting of the underlying premises of AI ethics, and point to some possible directions in which researchers and practitioners might look for inspiration

La mejora de las habilidades comunicativas en alumnos TEA a través de las TIC

The main objective of this study is to investigate the improvement of the communication skills of children with ASD through the use of ICT in educational centres. The research design involves the participation of teachers specialising in Special Education, Primary Education and Early Childhood Education. The procedure evaluates whether these participants enrich the educational intervention and inclusion of children with ASD through ICT. All of this is carried out using a quantitative method, in which the results are collected by means of forms created in Google Forms. That is why, in this scientific article, all the key information of the theoretical foundation on which the research approach is currently based is presented. This article presents the results obtained with respect to the work experience of the participating teachers, the use of ICT with students with ASD and the improvement of communication skills. 86% of the participants use ICT methodologies and they do observe an improvement in communication skills through the support of visual and audio tools.Este estudio presenta como objetivo principal investigar acerca de la mejora de las habilidades comunicativas de niños con TEA, mediante el empleo de las TIC en los centros educativos. Para dicho diseño de investigación, se cuenta con la participación de docentes, tanto especializados en Educación Especial, como en Educación Primaria e Infantil. En el procedimiento se evalúa que dichos participantes enriquezcan la intervención educativa y la inclusión en niños con TEA por medio de las TIC. Todo ello se lleva a cabo contando con un método de tipo cuantitativo, en el que se recogen los resultados por medio de formularios creados en Google Forms. Es por ello que, en este artículo científico, se presenta toda la información clave de la fundamentación teórica en la que se basa actualmente el planteamiento de la investigación. El presente artículo presenta los resultados obtenidos respecto a la experiencia laboral de los docentes participantes, el empleo de las TIC en el alumnado con TEA y la mejoría de las habilidades comunicativas. El 86% de los participantes llevan a cabo metodologías TIC y sí que observan una mejora en las habilidades comunicativas mediante el apoyo de herramientas visuales y sonoras

Seeing and inviting participation in autistic interactions

What does it take to see how autistic people participate in social interactions? And what does it take to support and invite more participation? Western medicine and cognitive science tend to think of autism mainly in terms of social and communicative deficits. But research shows that autistic people can interact with a skill and sophistication that are hard to see when starting from a deficit idea. Research also shows that not only autistic people, but also their non-autistic interaction partners can have difficulties interacting with each other. To do justice to these findings, we need a different approach to autistic interactions—one that helps everyone see, invite, and support better participation. I introduce such an approach, based on the enactive theory of participatory sense-making and supported by insights from indigenous epistemologies. This approach helps counteract the homogenising tendencies of the “global mental health” movement, which attempts to erase rather than recognise difference, and often precludes respectful engagements. Based in the lived experiences of people in their socio-cultural-material and interactive contexts, I put forward an engaged—even engaging—epistemology for understanding how we interact across difference. From this perspective, we see participatory sense-making at work across the scientific, diagnostic, therapeutic, and everyday interactions of autistic and non-autistic people, and how everyone can invite and support more of it

Independence for Whom? A Critical Discourse Analysis of Onboarding a Home Health Monitoring System for Older Adult Care

Home health monitoring systems (HHMS) are presented as a cost-effective solution that will assist with collaborative care of older adults. However, instead of care recipients feeling like collaborators, such systems often disempower them. In this paper, we examine the dissemination, onboarding, and initial use of an HHMS to see how the discourse used by developers and participants affects users' collaborative care efforts. We found that the textual information provided often contrasted with how our participants managed their care. Instead of providing participants with 'independence,' 'safety,' and 'peace of mind,' care recipients were placed in a more dependent, less proactive role, and care providers were pressured to take on more responsibilities. We position HHMS, as they are currently marketed and onboarded, as normalizing pseudo-institutionalization. As an alternative we advocate that the discourse and design of such systems should reflect and re-enforce the varied roles care recipients take in managing their care

El papel de las tecnologías digitales en la intervención educativa de niños con trastorno del espectro autista.

Este trabajo es el diseño de la investigación de una tesis doctoral cuyo objetivo general es elaborar un instrumento para la evaluación de aplicaciones móviles que promuevan la intervención educativa en niños con Trastorno del Espectro Autista (en adelante TEA). Dicho instrumento está pensado para evaluar aplicaciones móviles educativas que pueden resultar pertinentes en la intervención educativa con las personas con TEA. Actualmente nos situamos, según el modelo de investigación enfocado al diseño educativo (Educational Design Research, EDR), en la primera fase de la investigación (investigación preliminar). Hasta el momento, se ha definido el problema e iniciado, en primer lugar, la revisión de la literatura especializada y, en segundo lugar, el procedimiento de definición del método. Es por esto que, en este artículo, presentamos los contenidos clave de la fundamentación teórica en la que se está trabajando actualmente, el planteamiento de la investigación y una propuesta de definición del método

La potencialidad de la tecnología en la medición del desarrollo de habilidades sociales en niños con TEA: un análisis desde parámetros fisiológicos

El uso pedagógico de la tecnología es una realidad y está impulsando un cambio importante en la atención educativa a los niños con necesidades educativas especiales. Sin embargo, pocos son los estudios centrados en cómo verificar el impacto de estas herramientas en las diversas intervenciones que se realizan. En este sentido y con el objeto de evaluar mediante wearables los cambios reales que se producen cuando se interviene en el ámbito de las habilidades sociales en niños con TEA y verificar la potencialidad didáctica de los dispositivos tecnológicos, se plantea una investigación de diseño mixto basada en el método estudio de casos. La muestra ha estado constituida por cuatro alumnos con TEA. La recolección de datos se ha llevado a cabo, por un lado, mediante la observación sistemática de las conductas durante las sesiones de intervención, y por otro, mediante la medición de parámetros fisiológicos (ritmo cardíaco y actividad electrodérmica) a través de un wearable -Empatica E4-, asociándose a estados emocionales de los niños. Los resultados reflejan un aumento del ritmo cardíaco y variaciones en la actividad electrodérmica en situaciones de incomprensión y espera de turnos y un estado más calmado (disminución del ritmo cardíaco) en momentos de fijación de la atención en el dispositivo tecnológico. Asimismo, se observa un descenso en comportamientos no sociales como estereotipias o la mirada perdida y un aumento en conductas sociales. En concreto, aparecen incrementos significativos en la atención conjunta y en el contacto ocular

‘Whose agenda? Who knows best? Whose voice?’ Co-creating a technology research roadmap with autism stakeholders

Technologies play vital roles in the learning and participation of autistic people and yet have mostly been conceptualised according to a medical model of disability. In this stakeholder review, the comments of 240 participants from a two-year seminar series focusing on autism and technology were analysed to co-construct an understanding of how research could develop more inclusively. Our socio-cultural analysis shows that stakeholders were very positive about the roles that technologies can play in many areas of life, but that these technologies need to be developed and evaluated according to the needs and preferences of autistic people and their families. We propose an inclusive common social framework for research based on the core themes of social inclusion, perspectives, and participation and agency. Such a framework requires the field to recognise that some current practices are exclusionary and that a commitment to action is needed in order to make positive changes