Marti et alii. – Please do not circulate. Submitted to Behavioural and Information Technology. Enabling technologies for non verbal dialogical exchanges: the case of dementia care PATRIZIA MARTI*†, LEONARDO GIUSTI†, MARGHERITA BACIGALUPO†, §† Communication Science Dept., University of Siena, Italy Correspondence *Corresponding author. Email: marti@unisi.it This paper presents an early design and development work of the Multi-sensory room project, a research employing a multidisciplinary research team to facilitate the development of enabling technologies to assist care for elderly people affected by dementia. The general aim is to examine how digital technology can be designed and used to provide various kinds of support, like the tuning and control of different stimuli (mainly visual, auditory, tactile) and the engagement, interest and enjoyment of the subjects during the therapy. In order to reach this goal, we considered the collaboration and communication between patient and therapist as a key issue for the design. Following this vision, specific tools were designed to scaffold dialogic relationships between the therapist and the patient, providing them with the opportunity to establish a dialogue based on visual, aural, tactile and sensory-motor interaction modalities. The project explored the affordances of a variety of technological configurations with a focus on designing innovative tools using dialogicity as an interaction paradigm. The concept challenges people in establishing coordination and emphatic communication during the activity. The impact on the use of the tools developed in the project was evaluated through a controlled experiment. The results demonstrate a positive effect on engagement, coordination and motivation towards the therapy in the system configuration using the dialogic condition. These data are encouraging in continuing thinking how these might usefully become incorporated into design guidelines for the development of enabling technologies for the dementia care. Keywords: dementia; rehabilitation therapy; multi-sensory stimulation; enabling technologies AMS Subject Classification: