SMALLab for Special Needs: Using a Mixed-Reality Platform to Explore Learning for Children with Autism

Special education teachers are eager but struggling to move their students forward in the digital age. Guidelines for Universal Design for Learning (UDL) indicate that multiple means of representation, expression, and engagement are essential for creating a more widely accessible curriculum. Recent emerging technologies and human-computer interaction techniques offer opportunities to transform learning in these ways. Over the past 18 months, the K-12 Embodied and Mediated Learning Group in the Arts, Media and Engineering Program (AME) at Arizona State University (ASU) has partnered with a large urban high school in our region. We have undertaken a series of pilot studies using a new mixed-reality learning environment, SMALLab, working with teachers and students to collaboratively design learning scenarios that implement UDL approaches to learning for a diverse student population across multiple subject areas. Building from this prior work, we are involved in the early stages of a partnership with a group of teachers to extend this work for people on the autistic spectrum (PAS). We are designing a set of interactive scenarios and collecting data to determine how autistic students can engage in SMALLab. Our goals are to better understand how mediated environments can benefit students and teachers in special education, and to define a framework for developing mixed-reality learning scenarios that implement UDL.