Understanding Neurodiverse Social Play Between Autistic and Non-Autistic Children
Social play supports children to develop important life skills and foster friendships. However, autistic and non-autistic children often do not have equal opportunities to engage in social play. To better understand the different experiences of children during social play, we conducted interviews with 6 professionals and undertook observation sessions of autistic and non-autistic children during unstructured social play. Our findings build upon the ‘double empathy problem’ to capture and consider the needs of all children in neurodiverse groups (groups of both neurotypical and neurodivergent children together). We believe these findings could be used to guide the design of future social play technologies.
The research team included Brooke Morris (School of Computer Sciences) and Alison Oldfield (School of Education)