Zhou, Min, Song, Xinheng, Peng, Xiaolan, Jin, Mingxuan and Barathi, Soumya C.
2026.
Beyond prompt-following: empowering social agency in autistic children through narrative framing.
Presented at: 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems,
Barcelona, Spain,
13-17 April 2026.
Published in: Oliver, Nuria, Shamma, David A., Candello, Heloisa, Cesar, Pablo and Lopes, Pedro eds.
CHI EA '26: Proceedings of the Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
New York, NY:
ACM,
10.1145/3772363.3798353
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Abstract
Many digital interventions for autistic children frame social interaction as responding to explicit instructions, casting children as passive prompt-followers. We introduce NarraSocial, a virtual environment designed to support social agency by foregrounding opportunities for in-situ interpretation and initiated action. By leveraging contextual narrative scaffolding and meaning-driven feedback, NarraSocial shifts the child’s role from a responder to an interpreter of social intent. We report a within-subject study (N=10, ages 6-10) comparing this narrative-framed experience with an instruction-driven baseline using identical assets. Observations and caregiver reports reveal qualitative differences in interaction patterns, including more self-initiated exploration and contextually grounded responses in the narrative-framed condition. These findings suggest that narrative framing is not merely a surface storytelling device, but a structural interactional choice that empowers autistic children as initiators of social action.
| Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item - published (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Date Type: | Publication |
| Status: | Published |
| Schools: | Schools > Computer Science & Informatics |
| Additional Information: | Full list of editors available at: https://doi.org/10.1145/3772363.3798353 |
| Publisher: | ACM |
| ISBN: | 979-8-4007-2281-3 |
| Date of First Compliant Deposit: | 1 May 2026 |
| Last Modified: | 04 Aug 2026 22:35 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/186518 |
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