Designing capture applications to support the education of children with autism

Abstract

We explore the social and technical design issues involved in tracking the effectiveness of educational and therapeutic interventions for children with autism (CWA). Automated capture can be applied in a variety of settings to provide a means of keeping valuable records of interventions. We present the findings from qualitative studies and the designs of capture prototypes. These experiences lead to conclusions about specific considerations for building technologies to assist in the treatment of CWA, as well as other fragile demographics. Our work also reflects back on the automated capture problem itself, informing us as computer scientists how that class of applications must be reconsidered when the analysis of data in the access phase continually influences the capture needs and when social and practical constraints conflict with data collection needs. © Springer-Verlag 2004.