Paper Reading #1: Interpreting Input from Children: a Designerly Approach

Interpreting Input from Children: a Designerly Approach

CHI 2012, May 5-10, 2012, Austin, Texas, USA

Authors and brief information:

1. Christopher Fraenberger - Department of Informatics: University of Sussex
• Primarily works with children and technology
• Is currently on sabbatical
• http://cfabric.net/
2. Judith Good - Department of Informatics: University of Sussex
• Focuses on "immersive virtual environments for learning"
• Director of the IDEAs Lab
• http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/judithg/About_Me.html
3. Wendy Keay-Bright - Cardiff School of Art and Design: Cardiff Metropolitan University
• Primary focus on design ethnography
• Has several different areas of specialty including design, communication, and autism with computer
• http://cardiff-school-of-art-and-design.org/staff/wendykeaybright/
4. Helen Pain - School of Informatics: University of Edinburgh
• Primary focus is on children with special needs
• Does research on how education can be changed by artificial intelligence
• http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/helen/

Summary:

 The overall idea behind this research was to help determine the best way to interact with children both with and without autism.  The researchers took time to ask the students questions and designed an interface which is best helpful for the students.

Child at play with final design [1]

Autistic children often have trouble interacting with their peers and thus would do much better with a computer and non-autistic children usually do not have problems interacting with their peers and will include other students in the games with them.  The design of children's games is a challenge because the game needs to be adaptive to the child's needs without prompting.

Final design [1]

The approach taken to achieve a design is described in detail in this paper.  The results of the study showed that there is no simple way to design a program for children.  The complexity and needs involved allow for many different solutions; determining the method to find one that will work well is the goal of this research team. [1]

Related Work:

1. Use of Computer-Assisted Technologies (CAT) to Enhance Social, Communicative, and Language Development in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders
2. Social Skills and Autism: Understanding and Addressing the Deficits
3. Use of Computer-Based Interventions to Teach Communication Skills to Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Systematic Review
4. Engagement with Electronic Screen Media Among Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders
5. Theme issue on adaptation and personalization for ubiquitous computing
6. Interactive visual supports for children with autism
7. Developing technology for autism: an interdisciplinary approach
8. Monitoring children's developmental progress using augmented toys and activity recognition
9. A computer activity to encourage facial expression recognition for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders
10. Using Technology in Autism Research: The Promise and the Perils

All of the above listed papers are considered novel in their field, but they all have at least a small area of overlap.  No one's work is truly novel, it is always based on someone else's work which could make it very similar to another person's work.  However, each of these papers did talk about some of the related areas of work in at least references if not much better detail.

Evaluation:

The researchers in this project used a qualitative, subjective form of evaluation.  There were no true values to be calculated since this study was designed to improve the way new programs are written while taking into account autistic and non-autistic children.  The researchers also described their methods of determining how much input to allow a child to have on the development process.  In the context of an attempt to determine new or improved ways to include children in the development process, this evaluation is well done despite its lack of quantitative values.

Discussion:

Though I personally know only one person who has an autistic child, I can see the problems which his learning disabilities create for everyday life.  Due to my limited knowledge, I believe that this research was not only helpful but necessary to the improvement of everyday life for these children.  The evaluation provided is quite accurate, but could have been a little broader.  This contribution to the scientific world is very helpful and will eventually allow developers to work with child developers in better and more productive ways.

References:

[1] Frauenberger, Christoper, Judith Good, Wendy Keay-Bright, and Helen Pain. "Interpreting Input from Children: A Designerly Approach." CHI (2012): 2377-386. Acm.org. Web. 29 Aug. 2012. http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/2210000/2208399/p2377-frauenberger.pdf?ip=128.194.131.81&acc=ACTIVE%20SERVICE&CFID=109401214&CFTOKEN=55100429&__acm__=1346279221_ea8c2872e31388394ba93547e3718da4.
[2] http://scholar.google.com/