Congratulations to Kate Ringland, who was awarded a fellowship to study in Japan this summer as part of the National Science Foundation’s East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute! She will be working with Dr. Norimune Kawai in the Graduate School of Education at Hiroshima University. She will be facilitating participatory design workshops to help design new assistive and augmentative communication technology for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Abstract:
While there are a variety of available Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices available for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder in the United States, these devices are infrequently found for users in Japan especially in their native language. A culturally appropriate AAC system for use with Japanese children will be designed using participatory design workshops with stakeholders from Hiroshima University. During this project she will come to better understand the process of designing assistive technology as it occurs between local stakeholders in Japan and American researchers and to create a framework to help facilitate this kind of work in the future.