Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

This paper reports initial results from a usability study con-ducted in the formative and user-centered design phase of alarger project to translate an existing, science-focused edu-cational technology for neurotypical middle school studentsinto a new, social-reasoning-focused educational technologyfor students on the autism spectrum. Participants in our studyincluded both adolescents on the autism spectrum and typi-cally developing adolescents, who were asked to complete theBetty’s Brain educational-technology-based science activity aswell as a social-reasoning movie question-answering activity.Results include qualitative observations of general student en-gagement and challenges as well as quantitative measures ofperformance and eye gaze, including key differences observedacross our two sample groups, with the goal of informingthe design and adaptation of future technology-based inter-ventions. Our findings suggest specific considerations for de-signing educational technologies for adolescents on the autismspectrum, including 1) finding ways to help students followinstructional/tutorial portions of new technologies, especiallywhen lengthy instructions and/or complex interfaces are in-volved; 2) proactively anticipating and finding ways to mit-igate potential student episodes of frustration / dysregulationwhile using the technology; and 3) capitalizing on features ofthe technology found to be engaging/motivating for students.