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Friendship bracelet: New technology connects neurodiverse groups of children

A new technology in the form of a bracelet that helps children better understand how others play and interact has been developed by University of Bristol researchers.

The research is in the journal Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

The bracelet, which includes colored buttons to activate a light color signifying the play mode or activity of the children, is selected by the wearer. Children who participated in the research were able to use the bracelet to display to others whether they were playing together (green), playing alone (blue) or wanted to play with others (yellow).

The study, presented at the in Yokohama, highlights the importance of children being able to display and understand each other's intentions and ideas during play in an effort to facilitate more inclusive play experiences. The study was specifically interested in enabling both neurodivergent and neurotypical children to connect with one another and play together.

Current technologies designed to enable or support social play often focus on intervening in or correcting the play behavior of autistic children towards more neurotypical play activity.

The research is led by Dr. Oussama Metatla, from the School of Computer Science, and Dr. Alison Oldfield, from the School of Education. Dr. Metatla leads the Diverse-Ability Interaction Lab within the Bristol Interaction Group, which researches inclusive interactive technologies by centering the experiences of both disabled and non-disabled people.

Lead author Brooke Morris explained, "Previous research has demonstrated that autistic and non-autistic children may interact and play in different ways, which can cause difficulties during social play due to a lack of understanding of each other. We know a lot about the social play of neurotypical children but not much about the social play of autistic children or among neurodiverse groups.

"We wanted to know—how can we design and develop play technologies that support the different ways children play and interact and that help children understand each other better?"

The participating children were asked to craft different gadgets that would help them play and interact together, which were then designed by the research team. Children were also able to change the meaning of the colors on the bracelets as they pleased. Some altered the colors to signify "happy" or "sad" to share their emotions during play.

Now the team plans to look more deeply into both autistic and non-autistic children's own ideas about what playing and interacting with others looks like and what they find challenging about it. By further examining what barriers there are to playing together, the team can look at a subsequent co-design study exploring what technologies or practices could support neurodiverse groups of children's social play, making play technologies more inclusive.

Morris added, "We need to recognize that there is no right way to play and that there are divergent ways of playing and interacting with others."