In support of neurodiverse participatory sensemaking

Abstract

This paper asks how neurodiverse dyadic interactions may be supported by technologies, focusing on autistic children and their non-autistic others. Autism technologies often assume autism to be a social disorder that needs ‘fixing’, which we argue invalidates the experience of autistic sensemaking. Taking an enactive, participatory sensemaking perspective, paired with an ethics of neurodiversity; we investigated how to support neurodiverse participatory sensemaking. We contribute to research on ‘Diversity Computing’ technologies, which are envisioned to both respect and build connections between diverse ways of embodied sensemaking. In a Research-through-Design study, we confronted embodied theory with lived neurodiverse experiences, in interaction with our designed artifacts. Involving autistic children, teachers, (neurodivergent) dancers and music therapists, we iteratively designed and reflected on DiaDance: a system allowing autistic children and their non-autistic others to move together to adaptive music. Designing DiaDance helped understanding the ways in which interactive technology may support participatory sensemaking as self-organizing, intersubjective sensorimotor attunement. In this, each participant is invited to engage in the interaction ‘on their own terms’. Along with the prototype, we developed a set of interaction design principles, as well as outstanding challenges. In discussion, we identify three core conceptual reframings of understanding neurodiverse social interaction and how to design for it. These reframings reorient away from designing for instruction, representation and promoting social system level norms, and towards designing for scaffolding, attunement and intersubjective dialogue. With this work, we contribute to design that does justice to a diversity of sensemaking bodies, working towards a more neuro-inclusive society.