Authorable virtual peers for children with autism

For my dissertation, I am designing, implementing and evaluating the use of a new kind of "authorable" virtual peer that allows children with autism to learn about reciprocal social interaction by building their own virtual humans. This work has three stages: (1) Study the verbal and nonverbal reciprocal social interaction behaviors of children with autism; (2) Use the results of the study to design and implement an authorable virtual peer for children with autism; and (3) Evaluate the effectiveness of the system in improving reciprocal social interaction behaviors of children with autism. Keywords Assistive technology, autism, embodied conversational agents, collaborative virtual peers, social interaction ACM Classification Keywords H5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI): Miscellaneous.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: CHI
• Authors: Andrea Tartaro
• Keywords: CHI 2007, Human Computer Interaction, Reciprocal Social Interaction, Social Interaction Acm, Social Interaction Behaviors