PAR: A Collaborative Game for Multitouch Tabletop to Support Social Interaction of Users with Autism

We present the design and evaluation of the multiuser collaborative game PAR for multitouch tabletops. PAR was designed with four collaboration patterns to contribute to the social interaction skills of youngsters with Autism. These were obtained from collaboration patterns used in applications for users with High-Functioning Autism (HFA) and modified according to the requirements of target users (youngsters with autism more impaired than those with HFA). PAR was evaluated using research criteria about social interaction actions achieved by the users during the collaborative work in the game. We conducted 51 test sessions recorded in audio and video (17 sessions for each game phase) with 5 youngsters with Autism, changing pairs of players and their roles in the game. The results suggest that each collaboration pattern motivates the need for collaboration and encourages the creation of social interaction intentions or situations among users.