Participatory Design with and for Children and Teachers in Special Education Schools

Other conference contribution, 2016

The PhD research presented in this paper concerns how to involve groups of developmentally diverse children in the design process. It also investigates the roles that teachers and pedagogues in schools play within the design process. The project Touch-AT, in which context the PhD work is performed, aims to design and develop touch-based technologies for training of emotional and social skills with and for groups of developmentally diverse children in grades 6-9 in Swedish special education. This paper reports on work and findings from the first two years including weekly field studies as well as a number of workshop held with both teachers and children within special education. It also presents challenges related to design with and for children in a special education school context. Lastly it outlines the research approach as the project moves into the next iteration.