A designer's approach: How can autistic adults with learning disabilities be involved in the design process?

Autistic adults with limited speech and additional learning disabilities who are often excluded from design research are at the heart of this project. These are people whose perceptions, experiences and interactions with their surroundings are unique, but also are people who may not be able to communicate verbally their differences to the remaining 99% of the population. This, in combination with their distinctive cognitive profile, has resulted in a lack of studies involving people living with autism, and consequently their life experiences may neither be heard nor understood and remain largely unexplored. By reflecting upon the ongoing design collaboration between The Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design and the autism charity The Kingwood Trust, this paper reflects on the approach and methods used in three design studies. Particular attention is paid towards the careful selection, adaptation and development of collaborative design methods for autistic adults and their support staff to be involved. By working beyond the boundaries of a neurotypical culture, the project aims to support the greater goal of improving the everyday experiences of people living with autism by breaking down the barriers to participation

Blending human and artificial intelligence to support autistic children’s social communication skills

This paper examines the educational efficacy of a learning environment in which children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) engage in social interactions with an artificially intelligent (AI) virtual agent and where a human practitioner acts in support of the interactions. A multi-site intervention study in schools across the UK was conducted with 29 children with ASC and learning difficulties, aged 4-14 years old. For reasons related to data completeness and amount of exposure to the AI environment, data for 15 children was included in the analysis. The analysis revealed a significant increase in the proportion of social responses made by ASC children to human practitioners. The number of initiations made to human practitioners and to the virtual agent by the ASC children also increased numerically over the course of the sessions. However, due to large individual differences within the ASC group, this did not reach significance. Although no evidence of transfer to the real-world post-test was shown, anecdotal evidence of classroom transfer was reported. The work presented in this paper offers an important contribution to the growing body of research in the context of AI technology design and use for autism intervention in real school contexts. Specifically, the work highlights key methodological challenges and opportunities in this area by leveraging interdisciplinary insights in a way that (i) bridges between educational interventions and intelligent technology design practices, (ii) considers the design of technology as well as the design of its use (context and procedures) on par with one another, and (iii) includes design contributions from different stakeholders, including children with and without ASC diagnosis, educational practitioners and researchers

Developing technology for autism:an interdisciplinary approach

We present an interdisciplinary methodology for designing interactive multi-modal technology for young children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). In line with many other researchers in the field, we believe that the key to developing technology in this context is to embrace perspectives from diverse disciplines to arrive at a methodology that delivers satisfactory outcomes for all stakeholders. The ECHOES project provided us with the opportunity to develop a technology-enhanced learning (TEL) environment that facilitates acquisition and exploration of social skills by typically developing (TD) children and children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). ECHOES’ methodology and the learning environment rely crucially on multi-disciplinary expertise including developmental psychology, visual arts, human–computer interaction, artificial intelligence, education, and several other cognate disciplines. In this article, we reflect on the methods needed to develop a TEL environment for young users with ASDs by identifying key features, benefits, and challenges of this approach

Impact of interaction paradigms on full-body interaction collocated experiences for promoting social initiation and collaboration

This article addresses the design and study of novel interaction settings and systems supporting collocated interaction. More specifically, we aim to analyze the implications of two different interaction approaches, namely first-person and third-person interaction paradigms, and the corresponding theoretical approaches when designing and developing collocated experiences for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs). This analysis is supported by the outcomes of several examples of full-body interaction collocated experiences aimed at promoting social initiation and collaboration. Moreover, we present a series of goal-driven guidelines to consider when designing with various interaction paradigms. Finally, we discuss future work to better understand the implications of constructing paradigms for the intuitive use of these full-body interaction systems.Pico’s Adventure project was funded by the European Commission through the M4ALL project (Project no 531219-LLP-1-2012-1-IT-KA3-KA3MP). Lands of Fog was funded by Fundació La Caixa through the RecerCaixa 2013 grants; Fundación Bancaria Caixa d’Estalvis i Pensions de Barcelona