Exploring Collaboration Patterns in a Multitouch Game to Encourage Social Interaction and Collaboration Among Users with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

In this paper, we present a design and evaluation of four Collaboration Patterns on a multitouch collaborative game designed to encourage collaboration among people diagnosed with ASD (autism spectrum disorder). We define Collaboration Patterns as collaborative interaction strategies on elements in a multiuser interface. The patterns presented here were designed according to both recommendations from experts in ASD and requirements of a group of youths with high ASD-related impairment in their social interactions and were inspired by collaborative methods used in other studies. The proposed Collaboration Patterns were evaluated using research criteria relating to social interaction actions and collaborative tasks achieved by users during a multitouch game. The evaluation results suggest that each Collaboration Pattern motivates the need for collaboration and encourages creation of social interaction expressions among users. The applied sequence of patterns gradually encouraged collaborative activities and verbal and gestural interaction expressions among users. The significant characteristics of the proposed Collaboration Patterns allow us to suggest that they might be used in other collaborative applications aimed at fostering social interaction and collaboration among people with ASD.