Wearable assistive technologies for autism : opportunities and challenges

Autism is a lifelong developmental condition that affects how people perceive the world and interact with others. Challenges with typical social engagement, common in the autism experience, can have a significant negative impact on the quality of life of individuals and families living with autism. Recent advances in sensing, intelligent, and interactive technologies can enable new forms of assistive and augmentative technologies to support social interactions. However, researchers have not yet demonstrated effectiveness of these technologies in long-term real-world use. This paper presents an overview of social and sensory challenges of autism, which offer great opportunities and challenges for the design and development of assistive technologies. We review the existing work on developing wearable technologies for autism particularly to assist social interactions, analyse their potential and limitations, and discuss future research directions.PostprintPeer reviewe

ECSCW 2013 Adjunct Proceedings The 13th European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work 21 - 25. September 2013, Paphos, Cyprus

This volume presents the adjunct proceedings of ECSCW 2013.While the proceedings published by Springer Verlag contains the core of the technical program, namely the full papers, the adjunct proceedings includes contributions on work in progress, workshops and master classes, demos and videos, the doctoral colloquium, and keynotes, thus indicating what our field may become in the future

Our Year With the Glass: Expectations, Letdowns and Ethical Dilemmas of Technology Trials With Vulnerable People

In this paper, we reflect upon the ethical dilemmas faced during our research exploring the potential of Google Glass as a self-care technology for people with Parkinson's. Our project involved two stages of research: an initial study that explored the overall acceptability and responses of people with Parkinson's to the technology; and a follow-up study that examined participants' experiences of the technology in more depth through further trials and a series of co-design activities. While our first trials were successful, leading to publication and subsequent local and national publicity, our follow-up trials were hampered by technical problems that were often out of our control. We highlight how participants' heightened expectations prior to the second trial, as a result of public discourse around the project, were difficult to meet. This led to our participants articulating their frustrations, feelings of lowered self-confidence, and in some cases a reduced sense of self-worth. We reflect on how the decisions and actions taken during the project led to these dilemmas, and how these relate to contemporary challenges in human-computer interaction research where there is increased focus on in the wild studies of technology use and a pressure to publicly disseminate the findings of research. In doing so, we offer an open and honest account of how a set of ethical dilemmas emerged while conducting technology field trials with a potentially vulnerable group, and offer guidance to future researchers finding themselves in similar circumstances

Talk, text, tag? Understanding self-annotation of smart home data from a user’s perspective

Delivering effortless interactions and appropriate interventions through pervasive systems requires making sense of multiple streams of sensor data. This is particularly challenging when these concern people’s natural behaviours in the real world. This paper takes a multidisciplinary perspective of annotation and draws on an exploratory study of 12 people, who were encouraged to use a multi-modal annotation app while living in a prototype smart home. Analysis of the app usage data and of semi-structured interviews with the participants revealed strengths and limitations regarding self-annotation in a naturalistic context. Handing control of the annotation process to research participants enabled them to reason about their own data, while generating accounts that were appropriate and acceptable to them. Self-annotation provided participants an opportunity to reflect on themselves and their routines, but it was also a means to express themselves freely and sometimes even a backchannel to communicate playfully with the researchers. However, self-annotation may not be an effective way to capture accurate start and finish times for activities, or location associated with activity information. This paper offers new insights and recommendations for the design of self-annotation tools for deployment in the real world

Diretrizes para desenvolvimento de aplicativos de realidade aumentada para crianças com TEA na perspectiva do desenho universal

Orientador: Prof. Dr. Márcio Fontana CatapanDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do Paraná, Setor de Artes, Comunicação e Design, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Design. Defesa : Curitiba, 30/09/2021Inclui referências: p. 100-108Resumo: O Transtorno do Espectro Autista (TEA) afeta o neurodesenvolvimento de crianças, prejudicando a capacidade de interação social, comunicação e gerando comportamentos repetitivos. O papel do designer nesse contexto é incorporar os princípios de Usabilidade e acessibilidade às terapias específicas realizadas com esse público, desenvolvendo artefatos e estabelecendo diretrizes para tais ferramentas. A Realidade Aumentada (RA) vem colaborando como complemento aos métodos já existentes, praticados por psicólogos/terapeutas. Desta forma, a presente pesquisa se divide em três fases, e utiliza o método de pesquisa Design Science Research, além de técnicas de revisão bibliográfica de literatura para estabelecer lacunas e realizar levantamento do contexto do usuário. O objetivo principal foi o desenvolvimento de diretrizes para criação de aplicativos, baseados no Desenho Universal para aprendizagem de crianças com TEA por meio da Realidade Aumentada, que resultou em 16 tópicos de recomendações conceituadas e detalhadas, reunidas em um material de divulgação. Além disso, foi desenvolvido um aplicativo chamado "Todo dia eu", que conta com dois personagens, um menino e uma menina, com detalhamento das etapas de modelagem 3D, animação, criação e disponibilização do aplicativo para Android. As tarefas dos personagens foram selecionadas conforme protocolo de avaliação do Manual para Intervenção Comportamental Intensiva quanto ao Ensino de Habilidades Básicas para Pessoas com Autismo. O recorte da pesquisa definiu as seguintes ações: "Tocar o nariz", "sentar" e "beber no copo", a fim de treinar habilidades de atenção e de imitação. O aplicativo foi desenvolvido em duas versões, devido à retroalimentação do método aplicado, sendo assim, a pesquisa atingiu o resultado esperado em termos de aplicação das diretrizes, sendo essas o produto final da Design Science Research.Abstract: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) affects the neurodevelopment of children, impairing the ability to social interaction, communication and generating repetitive behaviors. The designer's role in this context is to incorporate the principles of Usability and accessibility to specific therapies performed with this audience, developing artifacts and establishing guidelines for such tools. Augmented Reality (AR) has been collaborating as a complement to existing methods practiced by psychologists/therapists. In this way, the present research is divided into three phases, and uses the Design Science Research research method, in addition to literature review techniques to establish gaps and carry out a survey of the user's context. The main objective was the development of guidelines for creating applications, based on Universal Design for learning by children with ASD through Augmented Reality, which resulted in 16 topics of conceptualized and detailed recommendations, gathered in a dissemination material. In addition, an application called "Todo dia eu" (Every day I) was developed, which has two characters, a boy and a girl, with details of the steps of 3D modeling, animation, creation and availability of the application for Android. The characters' tasks were selected according to the evaluation protocol of the Manual for Intensive Behavioral Intervention regarding the Teaching of Basic Skills for People with Autism. The research cutout defined the following actions: "Touch the nose", "sit" and "drink from a glass", to train attention and imitation skills. The application was developed in two versions, due to the feedback of the applied method, therefore, the research reached the expected result in terms of application of the guidelines, which are the final product of Design Science Research

Current, Issue 03: Design Research Journal

[Ethnography & Systems] On the Convergence of Ethnography and Design / David Bogen – Importing an Ethics Model into Creative Research / Lois Klassen, Glen Lowry & Julie York – Using Verticality / Bobbi Kyle & Nick NG – [Health & Well Being] Introduction / Rob Inkster – Youth in Transition / Jonathan Aitken – The Lions Gate Hospital Foyer Project / Jessica Carson – [Interactivity] Introduction / Alexandra Samuel – Interview with Alexandra Samuel / Celeste Martin – Designing the Vignellis: Processes in ebook production / Kendra Stalder & Vivian Ziereisen – [Stereoscopic 3D] Introduction / Maria Lantin – Changing Views on Research: A dialogue with Maria Lantin / Glen Lowry – Illuminating Vancouver’s Neon / Paige Louie – Contributors"The journal is designed, edited, produced and marketed by undergraduates in communication design with article contributions from students in both the graduate and undergraduate programs, alumni and faculty. We welcome new readers and celebrate the beginnings of a communicative venture to challenge the way we imagine process, discern the validation of the designer and explore the ethos of creative intelligence."--from website.Editors: Dr. Glen Lowry, Celeste Martin & Deborah Shackleton – Copy Editors: Sandra Dametto, Lois Klassen, Tracy Tsui & Tara Westover – Art Direction, Print/Digital Coordination: Celeste Martin – Art Directors: Alanna Munro & Janna (Yumi) Simonson – Production Manager: Jieun Jane Lee – Design & Production: Razia Daudjee, Kieran Wallace, Amanda Wangen, Hailey Yang & Dylan Yee – Photography: Sabrina NG & Makiko Umezawa – Digital Publication: Kieran Wallace & Amanda Wangen – Digital Video: Maksim Bentsianov, Elisa Ferrari, Bree Galbraith, Grant Gregson & Jillian Silva – Sound Recording/Post Production: Seth Mandeline – Cover Design: Razia Daudjee, Sabrina NG, & Makiko Umezawa – Logo Design: Evans Li – Blog: Bree Galbraith – Web Blog Support: Grant GregsonPublished annually

The Technological Emergence of AutoML: A Survey of Performant Software and Applications in the Context of Industry

With most technical fields, there exists a delay between fundamental academic research and practical industrial uptake. Whilst some sciences have robust and well-established processes for commercialisation, such as the pharmaceutical practice of regimented drug trials, other fields face transitory periods in which fundamental academic advancements diffuse gradually into the space of commerce and industry. For the still relatively young field of Automated/Autonomous Machine Learning (AutoML/AutonoML), that transitory period is under way, spurred on by a burgeoning interest from broader society. Yet, to date, little research has been undertaken to assess the current state of this dissemination and its uptake. Thus, this review makes two primary contributions to knowledge around this topic. Firstly, it provides the most up-to-date and comprehensive survey of existing AutoML tools, both open-source and commercial. Secondly, it motivates and outlines a framework for assessing whether an AutoML solution designed for real-world application is 'performant'; this framework extends beyond the limitations of typical academic criteria, considering a variety of stakeholder needs and the human-computer interactions required to service them. Thus, additionally supported by an extensive assessment and comparison of academic and commercial case-studies, this review evaluates mainstream engagement with AutoML in the early 2020s, identifying obstacles and opportunities for accelerating future uptake