Supporting inclusive approach for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) social environment

This paper presents some of the results of the ongoing SensAbility Design research based on Design for Well-being and Medical Devices carried out at the Politecnico di Bari, in the areas of product design, interaction design and education, which investigated the field of inclusive design for the design of devices capable of managing emotions in children with Level I Autism Spectrum Disorder (Di Roma et al., 2023). In particular, the paper reports a specific research experience based on the observation of the activities during therapeutic practice of a group of children (between 5 and 13 years old). Specific attention has been given to the emotion recognition and management. The critical scenario, the user research and the design research are investigated. At the base of the design research a new approach based on a new inclusion paradigm: the child’s emotions must be understood and supported by the context of care, nurturing, education and social integration in order to be able to behave in accordance with the ASD child’s expectations. To the end is presented Clea, a prototypal device connected to a bracelet with biometric sensors and an app to support caregivers in emotionally managing children.