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Community Led Co-Design of a Social Networking Platform with Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

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Abstract

Adolescents with ASD face challenges in forming positive friendships due to their ASD condition. This study developed a social networking platform based on the needs of a small group of ASD adolescents and their parents/carers and examined what potential benefits such a system could provide. We conducted seven co-design workshops with six adolescents with ASD over eight months. The team exchanged ideas and communicated through group discussions and drawings. The findings suggest that: (1) participants demonstrated self-advocacy skills through an iterative co-design process; (2) a safe and familiar environment encourages active participation from adolescents with ASD as co-designers; and (3) parents, community group and fellow participants play a pivotal role in engaging adolescents with ASD on a social-network.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the support extended by North Queensland Autism Support Group for facilitating the logistics of the study. We are also grateful to all participants and their parents/carers who are involved in this study. This study is conducted as part of a PhD research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Science and Technology, James Cook University, Queensland, Australia

    Randy Zhu

  2. Indigenous Education and Research Centre, James Cook University, Queensland, Australia

    Dianna Hardy

  3. School of Information Systems Science and Engineering Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, Queensland, Australia

    Trina Myers

Authors
  1. Randy Zhu
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  2. Dianna Hardy
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  3. Trina Myers
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Randy Zhu. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Randy Zhu and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Randy Zhu.

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Zhu, R., Hardy, D. & Myers, T. Community Led Co-Design of a Social Networking Platform with Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder. J Autism Dev Disord 52, 38–51 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-04918-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-04918-9

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