Augmenting imagination for children with autism

Evidence shows that children with autism suffer a deficit in spontaneous pretend play, which is believed to have developmental links to key competences of their future lives such as creativity and social interaction. In my PhD thesis, I would like to examine the use of Augmented Reality (AR), which superimposes imaginary objects on the real scene, as a novel therapeutic approach that may encourage children with autism to be involved in pretend play. In this paper, we present the design of an interactive AR system as an entry point to explore the main research questions of the thesis.