Early Acceptance Round Deadline: 17 December 2015

Final Acceptance Round Deadline: 12 January 2016

Camera Ready Submissions: 12 February 2016

Notifications will be sent out within 3 days after the deadlines.

Autism & Technology: Beyond Assistance & Interventions—technologies designed for people with autism are often focused on their particular functional limitations. This ignores a rich design space in which technologies could play more meaningful and multi- facetted roles in the complex life-worlds of people with autism. This one-day workshop at CHI 2016 will explore how to go beyond technologies that narrowly focus on concepts of assistance or intervention.

The following will be discussed throughout the course of the workshop:
– how autism is conceptualized as a disability and how this impacts on possible roles of technologies,
– how to unlock novel design spaces methodologically and
– how to evaluate the experiences of people with autism with technology.
The activities at the workshop will include focus groups on the questions above as well as practical design work. As an outcome, a manifesto will be collectively developed, drawing attention to the identified gap. A research agenda with then be devised to address it.

Call for Submissions:
Position papers are invited (up to four pages, SIGCH Extended Abstract Format) which engage with the workshop topic by considering the points described above, or bring in other relevant perspectives, including:
– Theoretical, philosophical and ethical foundations of developing technology for autistic people
– Design and evaluation methods
– Case studies of technologies that have multi-faceted roles

Submissions should also include a one paragraph-bio of authors and their backgrounds, what authors see as their contribution to the workshop and what they hope to get out of participating.

Please email your submission to the workshop organizers before one of the following two deadlines. There are two rounds of acceptance: the early closing 17 Dec 2015 (12pm, CET), the final closing 12 Jan 2016 (12pm, CET). Up to half of the maximum of participants (25) will be accepted in the early acceptance round. This is intended to enable participants to leverage 2015 Q4 budgets, not only 2016 budgets. The selection process will ensure that high quality contributions from a range of different perspectives are invited to participate.

At least one author of an accepted submission is required to attend the workshop, and participants must register for both the workshop and at least one day of the main conference.

with thanks to Judith Good, Chris Frauenberger, and Gerardo Herrera