Designing Embodied Musical Interaction for Children with Autism

This paper describes the design, implementation, and pilot evaluation of an interface to support embodied musical interaction for children with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC), in the context of music therapy sessions. Previous research suggests music and movement therapies are powerful tools for supporting children with autism in their development of communication, expression, and motor skills. OSMoSIS (Observation of Social Motor Synchrony with an Interactive System) is an interactive musical system which tracks body movements and transforms them into sounds using the Microsoft Kinect motion capture system. It is designed so that, regardless of motor abilities, children can generate sounds by moving in the environment either freely or guided by a facilitator. OSMoSIS was inspired by the author's experiences as a music therapist and supports observation of Social Motor Synchrony to allow facilitators and researchers to record and investigate this aspect of the therapy sessions. It converts movements into sounds using Microsoft Kinect body tracking, in the context of an interactive game. From our preliminary testing with 11 children with autism (aged 5 – 11 years old), we observed that our design actively connects children, who displayed a notable increase in engagement and interaction when the system was used.