Exceptionally Social: Design of an Avatar-Mediated Interactive System for Promoting Social Skills in Children with Autism

Behnaz Nojavanasghari, Charles E. Hughes, Louis-Philippe Morency

Abstract: Avatar-mediated and virtual environments hold a unique potential for promoting social skills in children with autism. This paper describes the design of "Exceptionally Social," which is an interactive system that uses avatars to mediate human-to-human interactions for social skills training of children with autism. This system aims to offer the following functionalities: (1) gives children the opportunity to practice social skills in a safe environment, under various contexts. (2) changes the dynamics of the interactions based on the child's affective states. (3) provides visual support for children to teach them different social skills and facilitate their learning. (4) reduces the cognitive load on the interactor (a trained human orchestrating the avatars' behaviors) by providing real-time feedback about a child's affective states and suggesting appropriate visual supports using a recommendation system.