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To Aid Emotion Expression for Non-Verbal Autistic Individuals, In an App, Less (Features) is More (Better)

Published: 24 April 2023 Publication History

Abstract

A significant proportion of autistic children are considered ‘non-verbal or minimally verbal’ and have difficulty expressing their emotions. Commercial alternative and assistive communication (AAC) apps are often inaccessible and ineffective in aiding autistic children in expressing emotions. Lack of access to adequate AACs is more prevalent in lower and middle-income communities (LMICs), which neither have sufficient infrastructure to aid the development of autistic children nor the resources to make expensive technology affordable. We propose the design of a prototype app that is accessible and multi-modal and caters to the specific needs of non-verbal and minimally verbal autistic children. Our design is grounded in research in autism and strength-based technology design. We incorporate accessibility guidelines and universal design features to make our design appropriate and effective for target users.

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Cited By

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  • (2024)Autistic Expression Beyond the Verbal - Studying Minimally-Verbal Autistic Indian Children's Embodied Interactions with Screen-Based TechnologyProceedings of the 23rd Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference10.1145/3628516.3655792(612-624)Online publication date: 17-Jun-2024
  • (2023)Moving Towards an Accessible Approach to Music Therapy for Autistic People: A Systematic Review2023 IEEE 47th Annual Computers, Software, and Applications Conference (COMPSAC)10.1109/COMPSAC57700.2023.00069(472-480)Online publication date: Jun-2023

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      cover image ACM Conferences
      UbiComp/ISWC '22 Adjunct: Adjunct Proceedings of the 2022 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing and the 2022 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers
      September 2022
      538 pages
      ISBN:9781450394239
      DOI:10.1145/3544793
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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      Publication History

      Published: 24 April 2023

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      Author Tags

      1. Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
      2. alternative communication
      3. emotions
      4. expression

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      • (2024)Autistic Expression Beyond the Verbal - Studying Minimally-Verbal Autistic Indian Children's Embodied Interactions with Screen-Based TechnologyProceedings of the 23rd Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference10.1145/3628516.3655792(612-624)Online publication date: 17-Jun-2024
      • (2023)Moving Towards an Accessible Approach to Music Therapy for Autistic People: A Systematic Review2023 IEEE 47th Annual Computers, Software, and Applications Conference (COMPSAC)10.1109/COMPSAC57700.2023.00069(472-480)Online publication date: Jun-2023

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