ABSTRACT

Augmentative and Alternative Communication Technology [AAC Tech] is a relatively young, multidisciplinary field aimed at developing technologies for people who are unable to use their natural speaking voice due to congenital or acquired disability. In this paper, we take a look at the role of AAC Tech in promoting an ‘empathic turn’ in the perception of non-speaking autistic persons. By the empathic turn we mean the turn towards a recognition of non-speaking autistic people as persons whose ways of engaging the world and expressing themselves are indicative of psychologically rich and intrinsically meaningful experiential lives. We first identify two ways in which AAC Tech contributes positively to this development. We then discuss how AAC Tech can simultaneously undermine genuine empathic communication between autistic persons and typically developed communicators (or neurotypicals). To mitigate this concern, we suggest the AAC field should incorporate philosophical insights from Design for Emotions and enactive embodied cognitive science into its R&D practices. To make our proposal concrete, we home in on stimming as an autistic form of bodily expressivity that can play an important role in empathic communicative exchanges between autistic persons and neurotypicals and that could be facilitated in AAC Tech designed for autistic people.

摘要

增强和替代通信技术 [AAC Tech] 是一个相对年轻的多学科领域，旨在为因先天性或后天残疾而无法使用自然语音的人们开发技术。在本文中，我们来看看瑞声科技在促进不说话的自闭症患者感知“移情转向”方面的作用。通过移情反过来，我们指的是转朝承认的不说话自闭症患者的人他们融入世界和表达自己的方式表明了心理上丰富且具有内在意义的体验式生活。我们首先确定瑞声科技对这一发展做出积极贡献的两种方式。然后，我们讨论瑞声科技如何同时破坏自闭症患者和典型的交流者（或神经典型者）之间真正的移情交流。为了减轻这种担忧，我们建议 AAC 领域应将来自“情感设计”的哲学见解和激活的具身认知科学纳入其研发实践。为了使我们的提案具体化，我们专注于刺激 作为一种身体表现力的自闭症形式，它可以在自闭症患者和神经典型患者之间的移情交流中发挥重要作用，并且可以在为自闭症患者设计的瑞声科技中得到促进。