Motivating children's initiations with novelty and surprise: initial design recommendations for autism

Abstract

Data from the ECHOES virtual environment (VE) suggests that young children with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) may be motivated to initiate repeatedly and positively about novelty and expectationviolations (i.e. discrepancies) in a VE. This is of interest because initiating communication is developmentally important but difficult to encourageit must be unprompted in order to "count". Also, the ASC literature would predict that discrepancies should be distressing, not motivating. Based on this unexpected but positive finding, we are exploring the possibility of embedding discrepancies into VEs to support children's initiation practice. As a first step, we propose 6 empiricallyderived design principles for including discrepancies as motivators, while still maintaining the VE's overall integrity.