Designing playful sensory experiences with interactive whiteboard technology: the implications for children on the autistic spectrum
Year: 2007
Type: article
Abstract: By definition, individuals on the autistic spectrum have difficulties with social interaction and communication; their different cognitive and sensory processing occurs in every modality and can result in a perception of the physical world that is fragmented, alarming and very different from non-autistic people. This can lead to high levels of fear and anxiety and a lack of understanding of the intentions of others. This paper will document part of the Reactive Colours design research project, which has been developing customisable software, called ReacTickles, to engage the unique sensory interests of children on the autistic spectrum and will focus on how the ReacTickles software is being used on interactive whiteboards with young autistic children in a number of UK schools. Whereas the conventional view maintains that educational technology should be interactive, Reactive Colours offers tangible interfaces as an embodied play activity. The benefit of this approach is, I argue, that it elicits outward expression of inner sensation and, as such, encourages greater bodily awareness in autistic children who experience distorted or even disconnected relationship with their body due to proprioceptive and vestibular sensory disorders. The interactive whiteboard removes the necessity to manage control in a confined space and, in so doing, reduces the impediment to bodily expression created by the limited spaces of traditional interfaces.
Author: Wendy Keay‐Bright
Institution: Cardiff Metropolitan University
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W133415902