Participatory Design with Children in the Autism Spectrum
Juan Pablo Hourcade · 2017
Reports of increasing rates of autism diagnoses among children have brought much attention to autism conditions during the past decade. Despite decades of research on interventions, and great efforts made in diagnosing autism early in life, most children diagnosed with autism cannot live independently as adults. Technologies developed for children diagnosed with autism cover a great variety of goals and use a wide variety of hardware. Many of the technologies were designed by collaborating directly with stakeholders such as parents and assistive technology practitioners, but not necessarily the children themselves. Together with graduate and undergraduate students, the author began conducting research on technologies for children diagnosed with autism in the summer of 2009, with weekly research activities continuing through 2012. Early in the project, drawing from the author experiences, existing literature, and available resources, he decided on a set of principles that he would attempt to follow: access, participation, personalization, and sustainability.