phat 15(3): e5

Research Article

Towards Designing Social Question-and-Answer Systems for Behavioral Support of Individuals with Autism

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  • @ARTICLE{10.4108/icst.pervasivehealth.2015.259282,
    author={Hwajung Hong and Gregory Abowd and Rosa Arriaga},
    title={Towards Designing Social Question-and-Answer Systems for Behavioral Support of Individuals with Autism},
    journal={EAI Endorsed Transactions on Pervasive Health and Technology},
    volume={1},
    number={3},
    publisher={EAI},
    journal_a={PHAT},
    year={2015},
    month={8},
    keywords={autism, asperger’s syndrome, behavioral and mental health, online community, question and answer system},
    doi={10.4108/icst.pervasivehealth.2015.259282}
}
  • Hwajung Hong
    Gregory Abowd
    Rosa Arriaga
    Year: 2015
    Towards Designing Social Question-and-Answer Systems for Behavioral Support of Individuals with Autism
    PHAT
    EAI
    DOI: 10.4108/icst.pervasivehealth.2015.259282
Hwajung Hong1,*, Gregory Abowd1, Rosa Arriaga1
  • 1: Georgia Institute of Technology
*Contact email: hwajung@gatech.edu

Abstract

Individuals with autism need a network of support to overcome the wide range of challenges in their daily life. Social media hold the promise for improving the quality of life of individuals with autism by offering remote advice for these daily challenges. In the paper, we study an online autism forum as a social question-and-answer (Q&A) venue. We examine 1,277 threads on the forum to characterize topics and types of questions asked by members. Our findings indicate that the majority of questions seek subjective advice and require knowledge about socially appropriate behavior—knowledge perhaps not easily elicited from the forum itself. Based on the identified opportunities and challenges, this paper contributes design recommendations for features in pervasive social computing systems that enhance online Q&A experience for individuals with autism.

Keywords
autism, asperger’s syndrome, behavioral and mental health, online community, question and answer system
Published
2015-08-03
Publisher
EAI
http://dx.doi.org/10.4108/icst.pervasivehealth.2015.259282

Copyright © 2015 H. Hong et al., licensed to EAI. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unlimited use, distribution and reproduction in any medium so long as the original work is properly cited.