Innovative technologies for autism: critical reflections on digital bubbles

自闭症是一种终生疾病，会影响人们与他人互动和沟通的方式，以及人们对世界的感知和思考。它是一种谱系，包括学习严重困难的人和智力水平非常高的人。ASC的诊断有所增加，英国估计至少每100人中就有1人患有ASC。自闭症可能会对社会发展、人际关系、获得社会支持、生活技能、就业和独立生活产生负面影响。然而，技术通常被视为对ASC患者具有特殊的吸引力，并且已经开发了许多技术支持(例如，虚拟现实游戏、应用程序、社交机器人、具有嵌入式技术的对象)来支持ASC患者。在典型发育迟缓的人群中，科技的使用受到了媒体的可怕警告，称科技正在切断人们的社交联系，陷入“数字泡沫”。在自闭症中使用技术也表达了同样的担忧：它会增加社会孤立，还是提供了一种以远程方式与他人接触的方式？不幸的是，研究证据没有整合到学科内部或学科之间，很少提交给利益相关者进行讨论。关于这一主题的科学研究来自广泛的学科，包括教育学、心理学、计算机科学、人机交互和工程学，但这些学科也往往存在于各自独立的泡沫中。这一系列研讨会旨在将不同的学科聚集在一起，审查和批判性地评估技术可能支持或损害自闭症患者福祉的方式，并将辩论的各个方面带给学院以外的利益相关者，包括自闭症患者、家庭和护理人员、专业人员和从业者。例如，目前的证据告诉我们什么，它如何帮助我们提出更微妙的问题，例如关于与他人远程互动和现场互动的差异，研究人员是否对自闭症的技术使用做出了不合理的假设，不同的学科可以从彼此身上学到什么，以及如何更好地从直接参与的利益相关者的观点中了解这场辩论？这一系列的7个研讨会将汇集来自不同学科的学者和最终用户，以解决“自闭症与技术”议程中的6个核心领域：(1)社会：列出在自闭症中使用技术可能带来的好处和关注的问题(2)发展学：从婴儿期到老年观察生命的所有阶段，从不同的方法和假设中学习(3)方法：研究问题是如何研究的(例如，对照实验，分析互动的视频，评估有效方法)(4)技术：根据所用技术的种类，研究问题可能有何不同，以及如何使用它来取代或增加其他方法，例如，虚拟与真实世界、个人或共享；(5)学科：不同的学术方法如何相互促进和挑战(6)多样性：通过观察使用技术支持一系列群体，例如老年人、痴呆症患者、交流受限的人，以及更广泛地跨文化和一般人群，挑战关于技术使用的假设，可以学到什么；精心设计和知情的技术发展可能会惠及所有人。最后(7)我们汇集了所有的想法，并强调了未来合作和研究的领域。

Autism is a lifelong condition that affects how people interact and communicate with others, and how people sense and think about the world. It is a spectrum, including people with severe learning difficulties and those with very high levels of intelligence. Diagnosis of ASC has increased, with UK estimates of at least 1 in 100 people. ASC can have negative effects on social development, relationships, access to social support, life skills, employment and independent living. However, technology is often seen as having a special attraction for people with ASC, and many technological supports (e.g. virtual reality games, apps, social robots, objects with embedded technology) have been developed to support people with ASC. Technology use in typically-developing people has been subject to dire warnings in the press about the ways it is cutting people off from social contact, into 'digital bubbles'. The same anxieties have been expressed about the use of technology in autism: will it increase social isolation, or does it provide a way of engaging with other people in a remote way? Unfortunately, research evidence is not integrated within or between disciplines and rarely presented to stakeholders for discussion. Scientific research on this topic comes from a wide range of disciplines, including education, psychology, computer science, human-computer interaction and engineering, but these disciplines also tend to exist in their own separate bubbles. This seminar series aims to bring together different disciplines to review and critically evaluate ways that technology might support or impair the wellbeing of people with ASC, and to bring aspects of the debate to stakeholders beyond the academy, including people with ASC, families and carers, professionals and practitioners. For example, what does the current evidence tell us, how does it help us to ask more subtle questions, e.g. about the differences of remote vs. live interaction with other people, are researchers making unjustified assumptions about technology use in autism, what can the different disciplines learn from each other and how can the debate be better informed by the views of stakeholders directly involved?This series of 7 seminars will bring together academics from different disciplines and end users to address 6 core areas within the 'autism and technology' agenda: (1) Social: setting out the possible benefits and concerns in technology use in autism(2) Developmental: looking across all stages of life from infancy to old age to learn from different approaches and assumptions(3) Methods: looking at how the question is studied (e.g. controlled experiments, analysing videos of interaction, methods of evaluating what works)(4) Technologies: looking at how questions might be very different depending on the sort of technology used, and how it is used, e.g. virtual vs real-world, individual or shared, to replace or add to other approaches(5) Disciplines: how different academic approaches can contribute and challenge each other(6) Diversity: what might be learnt by looking at the use of technology to support a whole range of groups, e.g. the elderly, dementia sufferers, those with limited communication, and more broadly looking across cultures and the general population, to challenge assumptions about technology use; well designed and informed development of technology may extend benefits to all. Finally (7) we bring together all the ideas and highlight areas for future collaboration and research.