We have published a new article reporting on parents’ views of technology use by autistic people at home. The paper is free to download from this link and you can cite the paper as:
Laurie, M. H., Warreyn, P., Uriarte, B. V., Boonen, C. & Fletcher-Watson, S. (2018). An International Survey of Parental Attitudes to Technology Use by Their Autistic Children at Home. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. doi: 10.1007/s10803-018-3798-0.
Paper summary: Capturing variability in use of commercial technologies by autistic children can inform future learning and support technology design. Survey data were collected from parents (n=388) in the UK, Spain, and Belgium, and includes information about individuals with a range of ages and ability levels. We found a comparable pattern of access and usage across children and adults, though higher reading and language ability was linked to use of more devices and interfaces. Reported worries was associated with parents reporting that their child spent more time using technology. Our findings show that autistic children use mainstream technologies for a broad range of recreational uses, including listening to music, playing games, and doing online searching on topics of interest.
Data and Materials:
A copy of the survey in English can be downloaded here
The anonymised and processed dataset can be viewed and downloaded here, including analysis scripts
A summary in plain and simple language summary can be viewed here, and our findings were also shared by the National Autistic Society
