Avatars, apps, & autism : an innovative approach to facilitate social language, 2018

"Adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) prefer communicating via computers, rather than face-to-face. We analyzed how four adolescents with ASD used social language in a face-to-face conversation, followed by two conversations with the same partner represented as a computer avatar. Specifically, we investigated the use of contingent language in response to close-ended questions and to bait-and-hook statements. Bait-and-hook statements created a natural opening in conversation for the participant to initiate a contingent question to advance the conversation. Results showed that participants used consistent words across face-to-face and the second computer condition. Most notably, participants asked more contingent questions in response to bait-and-hooks when communicating with the avatar. This suggests that avatars may facilitate verbal interactions in ASD, creating an opportunity for individuals to use advanced social language, such as contingent questions in an implicit “opening” to progress a conversation." --Abstract.