KidTalk: Online Therapy for Asperger’s Syndrome

We have created KidTalk, an online environment used to treat children with Asperger’s Syndrome/High Functioning Autism. This paper describes our design process, the system, deployment, and assessment. Children with Asperger’s Syndrome often demonstrate poor communication and social skills despite their tendency to be verbally precocious. Consequently, these children often struggle with loneliness, anxiety and depression. Current small group face-to-face therapy focuses on teaching social communication skills, but clinicians have difficulty delivering their services to an increasing number of patients. KidTalk is a software environment that runs scripts for interaction and rewards progress and socially appropriate behavior, and provides therapists with group therapy and feedback tools. Going forward, we hope KidTalk can provide more access to treatment for Asperger’s Syndrome.