"Wow! You're Wearing a Fitbit, You're a Young Boy Now!": Socio-Technical Aspirations for Children with Autism in India
Sumita Sharma, Krishnaveni Achary, Harmeet Kaur, Juhani Linna, Markku Turunen, Blessin Varkey, Jaakko Hakulinen, Sanidhya Daeeyya · 2018 · Proceedings of the 20th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '18) · doi:10.1145/3234695.3239329
Summary
This paper explores how socio-technical aspirations — the ambitions and desires of stakeholders to own or use technology for personal benefit or societal acceptance — influence technology adoption for children with autism in India. The research is based on two studies at a special school in New Delhi. In the first study, six children with autism (ages 8-20, all categorized as low-functioning on the Childhood Autism Rating Scale), their parents, and an occupational therapist explored whether Fitbit Flex fitness bands could motivate increased physical activity. Children wore the devices for 4-16 days during summer break. In the second study, five participants (two parents, two researchers, and an occupational therapist) from the same school were interviewed about their expectations, current technology use, and challenges with technology adoption. The paper extends Boujarwah et al.'s three-dimensional framework for culture-based assistive technology design (lifestyle, socio-technical infrastructure, monetary and informational resources) by proposing a fourth dimension: socio-technical aspirations. This dimension captures how cultural desires and social status associated with technology can drive adoption independently of — or even despite — practical barriers.
Key findings
Parents devised culturally grounded motivational strategies to encourage their children to wear the Fitbit, drawing analogies to familiar Indian wrist accessories like rakhis (ornamental threads), bangles, moli (holy threads), and friendship bands. These cultural framings helped children accept an unfamiliar device. The social appreciation children received for wearing a Fitbit — being told "you're a young boy now" — increased their confidence and happiness, demonstrating how mainstream technology can provide social inclusion benefits beyond its intended function. Five of six participants averaged over 6,000 steps per day. However, significant challenges emerged: three participants experienced haptic hypersensitivity to the band, two bands broke, one was lost, and parents felt heavily burdened with responsibility for the "expensive" device. Parents and the occupational therapist had notably different perceptions of the children's abilities — disagreeing on socialization and walking levels — revealing the complexity of understanding autism across stakeholder perspectives. Interviews showed parents were proud of their children's tech-savviness and aspired for India to match developed countries in technology access for children with special needs, even while acknowledging concerns about overuse and the digital divide.
Relevance
This research makes an important contribution to accessible technology design by centering the cultural and aspirational dimensions of technology adoption in the Global South. The finding that mainstream consumer technology (a Fitbit) can serve accessibility goals while also providing social inclusion — avoiding the stigma often associated with dedicated assistive devices — is significant for practitioners. The proposed "socio-technical aspirations" framework dimension reminds designers that technology adoption is not purely rational or needs-based; social status, cultural meaning, and community aspirations all play powerful roles. For organizations working internationally, this study highlights that assistive technology frameworks developed in Western contexts may miss critical motivational factors in other cultures. The practical challenges documented — sensory sensitivities, device durability, parental burden, cost anxiety — provide concrete design considerations for wearable technology intended for children with autism in resource-constrained settings.
Tags: autism · Global South accessibility · technology adoption · wearable technology · physical activity · cultural accessibility · co-design · children