Enabling opportunities for young children with disabilities to co-engage in learning activities alongside their non-disabled peers is essential for promoting equity in early childhood education. We investigate how collaborative technology can be designed to support young neurodivergent and neurotypical children in playing together. By integrating theories and methods from design, HCI, and the learning sciences, we iteratively designed, developed, and evaluated a novel tablet application called Incloodle-Classroom (Incloodle in short), that takes into account the needs of neurodiverse groups of children and the adults who support them during play. We deployed Incloodle in a kindergarten classroom of 15 neurodivergent and 16 neurotypical children over a 10-week period. Using interaction analysis, we present rich empirical understandings of how children interacted with each other, with adults, and with Incloodle. In doing so, we contribute new theoretical underpinnings to collaborative and accessible technology design, extending joint media engagement to encompass inclusivity and equity.

Although specific design decisions are known to support Joint Media Engagement (JME; co-play with digital media) it is unclear whether current off-the-shelf tablet experiences are designed with this in mind and whether parents and children are able to engage in JME in practice. As apps that promote artistic creation (i.e., music, drawings) fulfill many extant design recommendations for JME, we observed joint play with two artistic creation apps in a culturally and socioeconomically diverse sample of 20 United States child-mother dyads. Using interaction analysis, we found that in these ”ideal” circumstances, families used varying styles of co-engagement, with Co-Creation and Parent Coaching standing out as collaborative arrangements toward which designers and families can strive. However, there were still challenges, with parents often assuming spectator roles despite their apparent intentions. We highlight key challenges to JME plus design supports and parent strategies to help families jointly engage and create with media.