Workshop paper Taking an embodied perspective, we report on the design of two interactive products aimed at empowering people with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder in coping with challenges of everyday life. Our Research-through-Design study combined theory with hands-on co-design work and in situ user observation, in close collaboration with clients and their professional caretakers, constructing experienceable prototypes as tangible anchors for reflection. Reflection resulted in guiding principles addressing the design potential of designing for Embodied Empowerment, centering on the client’s embodied-being-in-the-world.
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Workshop paper Taking an embodied perspective, we report on the design of two interactive products aimed at empowering people with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder in coping with challenges of everyday life. Our Research-through-Design study combined theory with hands-on co-design work and in situ user observation, in close collaboration with clients and their professional caretakers, constructing experienceable prototypes as tangible anchors for reflection. Reflection resulted in guiding principles addressing the design potential of designing for Embodied Empowerment, centering on the client’s embodied-being-in-the-world.
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We used a validated agent-based model—Socio-Emotional CONcern DynamicS (SECONDS)—to model real-time playful interaction between a child diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and its parent. SECONDS provides a real-time (second-by-second) virtual environment that could be used for clinical trials and testingprocess-orientedexplanationsofASDsymptomatology.Weconductednumerical experiments with SECONDS (1) for internal model validation comparing two parental behavioral strategies for stimulating social development in ASD (play-centered vs. initiative-centered) and (2) for empirical case-based model validation. We compared 2,000 simulated play sessions of two particular dyads with (second-by-second) time-series observations within 29 play sessions of a real parent-child dyad with ASD on six variables related to maintaining and initiating play. Overall, both simuladistributions. Given the idiosyncratic behaviors expected in ASD, the observed correspondence is non-trivial. Our results demonstrate the applicability of SECONDS to parent-child dyads in ASD. In the future, SECONDS could help design interventions for parental care in ASDted dyads provided a better fit to the observed dyad than reference null
