Educational Games

Problem

This research addresses the significant barriers autistic young adults face in transitioning to independent adulthood, particularly the dramatic loss of educational and support services between ages 18-22. With only 19% living independently and just 36% continuing education after high school, this population needs alternative pathways to develop professional skills. Social media platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook are critical for professional networking and employment, but autistic users often struggle with literal interface language and implicit communication norms, preventing safe and effective use of these tools. Safe Scales is a gamified mobile app that delivers social media literacy education remotely and self-paced, eliminating barriers like transportation and program costs while using game mechanics to maintain engagement in an independent remote learning environment.

Current Work

Safe Scales will be tested in two phases with autistic young adults (ages 18-35) from a local residential transitional school. Phase 1 involves usability testing through guided sessions and one week of independent home use, with participants completing surveys and interviews to identify design improvements. Phase 2 is a four-month field deployment where participants are randomly assigned to either a gamified version (featuring dragon collection, growth visualizations, and customizable spaces) or a non-gamified version (with only progress bars and checkmarks). Both versions contain identical educational content and assessments. Learning outcomes and engagement metrics will be compared across conditions and against previous in-person classes (with identical content) to isolate the effects of remote instruction and gamification on learning gains, completion rates, and sustained engagement.

Publications

1. X. Page et al., “Perceiving affordances differently,” in Proc. of CHI, ACM, 2022, pp. 1–21.
2. K. Chapman et al., “Social media safety literacy for emerging adults,” INSAR 2025.
3. K. Hamad et al., “Engaging neurodivergent learners through gamified quiz platforms,” INSAR 2025.
4. J. C. Xing et al., “Helping autistic young adults fight privacy violations,” SOUPS 2024.
5. A. McGuire et al., “Supporting autistic adults through a gamified educational app,” INSAR 2025.

Citations

1. A. M. Roux et al., “Transition into young adulthood,” National Autism Indicators Report, 2015.
2. T. Carneiro et al., “Serious games for developing social skills in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder,” Healthcare, vol. 12, no. 5, p. 508, 2024.
3. M. C. Camargo et al., “Designing gamified interventions for autism spectrum disorder,” in Entertainment Computing and Serious Games, vol. 11863, 2019, pp. 341–352.