Abstract
Reactive Colours© is a network based open development soft-ware programme to introduce children on the autistic spectrum to computing and aims to demonstrate the provision of an interface through which communication, through play, can occur more easily than is usual with autistic children. The chief intended benefits, building on the work of Dinah Murray and Mike Lesser, are therapeutic. These arise from an interface design, which focuses on, and deliberately emphasises, certain characteristics of computing that are of potential significance to people on the autism spectrum. Characteristics that provide users with a comfortable context-free, predictable environment, where autistic and non autistic people can join attention tunnels upon clearly delineated foci of attention, with minimal mutual discom fort, and in which communication, sociability and imaginative play can spontaneously occur. Self-respect and mutual respect can emerge, and even thrive outside the computer sessions. The secondary educational goal is to teach mouse, keyboard, and screen skills.
Citation
Freeman, D., and Keay-Bright, W. (2004) Reactive Colours - Motivating Shared Experience of the First Reactions of Children on the Autism Spectrum to Computers: Human Diversity and the Case for Open Participative Systems of Design., in Redmond, J., Durling, D. and de Bono, A (eds.), Futureground - DRS International Conference 2004, 17-21 November, Melbourne, Australia. https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/drs-conference-papers/drs2004/researchpapers/152
Reactive Colours - Motivating Shared Experience of the First Reactions of Children on the Autism Spectrum to Computers: Human Diversity and the Case for Open Participative Systems of Design.
Reactive Colours© is a network based open development soft-ware programme to introduce children on the autistic spectrum to computing and aims to demonstrate the provision of an interface through which communication, through play, can occur more easily than is usual with autistic children. The chief intended benefits, building on the work of Dinah Murray and Mike Lesser, are therapeutic. These arise from an interface design, which focuses on, and deliberately emphasises, certain characteristics of computing that are of potential significance to people on the autism spectrum. Characteristics that provide users with a comfortable context-free, predictable environment, where autistic and non autistic people can join attention tunnels upon clearly delineated foci of attention, with minimal mutual discom fort, and in which communication, sociability and imaginative play can spontaneously occur. Self-respect and mutual respect can emerge, and even thrive outside the computer sessions. The secondary educational goal is to teach mouse, keyboard, and screen skills.