Together Tales: Designing inclusive storytelling games with generative AI to foster neurodiverse socialization

This MFA thesis in Design for Responsible Innovation includes three peer-reviewed conference short papers and one short paper accepted as a poster, each presented at a national or international conference in the fields of serious games and learning sciences. These works collectively address the overarching question of how to foster meaningful social interaction between autistic children and their non-autistic peers in digital environments. By integrating generative AI (GenAI) technologies, the research explores the potential of AI-enhanced collaborative storytelling in supporting peer collaboration—and in facilitating collaboration between children and adults—as one possible response to this question from the author’s perspective. The papers center on an in-progress game, Together Tales, which serves not only as a design prototype but also as a case study of a participatory design process aimed at promoting child-centered digital environments, offering valuable inspiration for future game designs with similar goals. Together, these works reflect the author’s deep engagement with design and autism research and demonstrate the potential of experimental, interdisciplinary approaches.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.F.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Art and Design

Grantor

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2025

Author dc:creator

• Xiao, Yiqi

Contributors dc:contributor

• Briggs, Molly
• Garcia, Juan Salamanca
• Hetrick, Laura
• Starks, Katryna
• Pridemore, Joshua

• Autistic Children
• Generative Ai
• Neurodiversity
• Social Skills
• Educational Game
• Autism Spectrum Disorder
• Generative Image Models
• Storytelling
• Peer Relationships
• Structured Collaborative Learning
• Participatory Design
• Neurodiverse Collaboration
• Inclusive Education.

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright © 2025 Yiqi Xiao. Portions of this thesis are based on previously published articles and articles pending publication. All rights reserved.

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129789

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F129789