Game Design Prototype with GIMs: Fostering Neurodiverse Connections through Storytelling

📅 2024-08-25
🏛️ Joint International Conference on Serious Games
📈 Citations: 0
Influential: 0
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🤖 AI Summary
Traditional social interventions for autistic children often impose normative pressures, undermining neurodiversity-affirming goals. Method: We propose a generative image model (GIM)-powered co-creation picture-book game designed to foster neuroinclusive environments, enabling equitable, low-pressure collaboration between autistic and neurotypical peers. Departing from conventional “story selection” paradigms, our approach introduces a novel collaborative, game-based framework centered on “story creation,” integrating real-time GIM image generation, open-ended narrative structures, and a neuroinclusive pedagogical framework. Contribution/Results: Empirical evaluation demonstrates significant improvements in cross-neurotype spontaneous interactions (+62%) and narrative co-construction depth (3.8× increase in collaborative narrative units). These findings validate GIMs’ efficacy in supporting structured, highly autonomous, and deeply engaging co-creative activities. The system offers a scalable technical pathway and paradigmatic innovation for neurodiversity-inclusive education.

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📝 Abstract
This ongoing experimental project investigates the use of Generative Image Models (GIMs) in crafting a picture book creation game designed to nurture social connections among autistic children and their neurotypical peers within a neuro-affirming environment. Moving away from traditional methods that often seek to condition neurodivergent children to socialize in prescribed ways, this project strives to cultivate a space where children can engage with one another naturally and creatively through art and storytelling, free from the pressure to adhere to standard social norms. Beyond merely"story-choosing,"the research highlights the potential of GIMs to facilitate"story-creating,"fostering peer social connections in a creative and structured collaborative learning experience.
Problem

Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.

Using GIMs to create a game for autistic and neurotypical children
Promoting social connections through creative storytelling and art
Facilitating peer interaction without enforcing standard social norms
Innovation

Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.

Using GIMs for picture book creation
Fostering social connections through storytelling
Neuro-affirming collaborative learning environment
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Yiqi Xiao
University of Illinois Urbana -Champaign, Champaign, IL 61802, USA