This paper presents an adaptive physical environment that allows children with severe autism to successfully interact with multimodal stimuli, giving them a sense of control of the interaction and, hence, providing them with a sense of agency. This has been an extremely important effort for two main reasons: 1) This user group cannot be typified, hence making the design of an interactive system to fit all the spectrum of individuals a very complex task; 2) each individual PAS (person on the autistic spectrum) user must be able to develop himself within the environment according to his own capacities and potentiality. Qualitative evaluation by psychologists shows very good results and sketches an encouraging future for research on these environments.

Autism is a developmental disorder which presents disability in communication and socialisation and a lack of imagination. To promote creativity, exploration and enjoyment in low functioning autistic children that have no verbal communication, we propose MEDIATE, an interactive environment that generates real time visual, aural and vibrotactile stimuli. This paper focuses on the design of interaction with visuals within MEDIATE. The design is guided by the objectives of giving children a sense of agency and enhance non repetitive actions. Other guidelines of this design include natural interaction, use of non invasive technology and non representational visuals. This visual interaction (together with sound and vibrotacile) allows the children to enjoy MEDIATE and be creative within this environment.