Review on the latest ITASD (International Conference on Innovative Technologies for Autism Spectrum Disorders )

The 3rd International Conference on Innovative Technologies for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ITASD) recently took place in Valencia, Spain attracting 550 participants, most of them professionals working in the autism community. The conference brought together researchers with both individuals and families affected by autism, practitioners and organisations to share experiences on digital technologies and autism.

The areas explored included:

• Person-technology matching and 1. expressive communication 2. social communication
• Self-regulation and autonomy
• Body interaction
• Robots improving social development in children
• Technology for adolescence and adulthood

Gerardo Herrera, Chair of the scientific committee notes: “Twenty works were presented as oral communications and thirteen as posters. All presenters expressed the satisfaction of being able to present their work in a Conference where both technology and autism are the issue. As they say, when they present their work in a technology conference, they are usually the only ones talking about autism. They also claim that, in autism conferences, the number of IT related works is also (relatively) small. So, they were very happy to be able to present their results at ITASD, where everybody showed high interest in this particular area.

In this third edition, it was clear that the “IT + ASD” topic is now a mature one. Although there is still a long way to go, very important steps have been taken. These include:

• the acceptance of participatory design as a standard of good practice
• the recognition of the role that affective computing can have in autism
• the important developments already achieved in that and many other areas.
• an increasing awareness of the need of conceiving IT+ASD solutions as something that must have evidence-based support.

Another important progress made with this third edition has been the clear separation of the scientific results from the commercial products presented at the conference. The scientific committee independently reviewed all the abstracts received and commercial presentations were presented throughout different channels, with sponsored communications being explicitly announced as such within the ITASD conference program. This is a necessary and important step to achieve a framework of evidence-based practice in this field.

Finally, the theme of the conference ‘matching technology with people’ highlighted the need of having unique (i.e. highly personalised) solutions for each individual. For that particular aim, the conference coincided with the multiplier event of Erasmus+ funded SMART-ASD project, with the tools of that project for matching students with ASD and available Apps were presented. In their presentations, most speakers also considered this topic as a key element for the future of technologies in autism.”

Proceedings of the conference:

Book of abstracts (in English)

El libro de resúmenes (en castellano)

More on the SMART-ASD project