Agency of Autistic Children in Technology Research—A Critical Literature Review

TLDR

Autistic children are increasingly a focus of technology research within the Human‑Computer Interaction community. We provide a critical review of the purposes of these technologies and how they discursively conceptualise the agency of autistic children, and we offer guidance to move HCI research beyond external goals by explicitly allowing for agency and appropriation. The review examines how these technologies are framed and conceptualised in terms of agency. Our analysis identifies six purpose categories—behaviour analysis, assistive technologies, education, social skills, therapy, and well‑being—yet shows that the technologies embody neurotypical norms, treat autistic children as secondary audiences, and lack designs aligned with their interests, needs, and desires.

Abstract

Autistic children are increasingly a focus of technology research within the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) community. We provide a critical review of the purposes of these technologies and how they discursively conceptualise the agency of autistic children. Through our analysis, we establish six categories of these purposes: behaviour analysis, assistive technologies, education, social skills, therapy and well-being. Further, our discussion of these purposes shows how the technologies embody normative expectations of a neurotypical society, which predominantly views autism as a medical deficit in need of ‘correction’. Autistic children—purportedly the beneficiaries of these technologies—thus become a secondary audience to the largely externally defined purposes. We identify a lack of design for technologies that are geared towards the interests, needs and desires of autistic children. To move HCI’s research into autism beyond this, we provide guidance on how to consider agency in use and explicitly allow for appropriation beyond externally driven goals.