____________________________________ Proccedings of the Third Symposium on Psychology-Based Technologies (PSYCHOBIT2021), October 4–5, 2021, Naples, Italy EMAIL: abdrw97@gmail.com (ARA Wahab); myhazlina@iium.edu.my (HM Yusof); sarahafiqah.zabidi@live.iium.edu.my (SAM Zabidi) ORCID: 0000-0002-6349-2028 (HM Yusof); 0000-0002-9744-0429 (SAM Zabidi) © 2021 Copyright for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org) Interactive Multi-Sensory Tactile Mat for ASD Children With Tactile Defensiveness Issues: A Preliminary Study Abdul Rahman Abdul Wahab a , Hazlina Md. Yusof b and Sarah Afiqah Mohd Zabidi c a International Islamic University Malaysia, Jalan Gombak, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia b International Islamic University Malaysia, Jalan Gombak, Kuala Lumpur, 0000-0002-6349-2028, Malaysia c International Islamic University Malaysia, Jalan Gombak, Kuala Lumpur, 0000-0002-9744-0429, Malaysia Abstract Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) according to the official website of Malaysia’s Ministry of Health is “a long-term growth disorder that affects a child's thinking and information processes”. Some ASD children may face issues with sensory processing such as tactile defensiveness. It is a condition where the sensory processing of an individual is over responsive which can be emotionally and mentally painful to affected individuals. The effect of the symptom can be reduced through intervention programs. However, keeping track of ASD children’s response/reactivity various surface and textures may be difficult for the child’s therapist or parents. This paper presents the development of a device specifically designed to assist ASD children with tactile defensiveness issue. The device consists of three modes: Measurement mode, Game mode and Education mode. The system is still in preliminary study and were tested with 5 healthy adults for system validation. Keywords Autism Spectrum Disorder, ASD, Assistive Technologies, AT, Tactile Defensiveness, Sensory 1. Introduction Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) as according to the official website of Malaysia Ministry of Health is “a long-term growth disorder that affects a child's thinking and information processes”. In Malaysia, out of 1000 children, 1-2 of them are suffering from ASD and the probability for it to occur in male is 4.7 times higher than female [1]. Some ASD children may face challenges with sensory processing. ASD child with difficulties in sensory processing may experience extreme sensitivity to loud sounds, bright colors and other sensory input that may seem normal to us. The issue can be further categorized into two categories which are hyposensitivity and hypersensitivity [2]. If a child is hypersensitive, they will often feel anxious and refuse participating in a task that is too intense. They may demonstrate emotional response/meltdown which can lead them to avoid sensory input as it is overwhelming for them. A hyposensitive child may not respond to sensory stimuli that others typically respond to. Current research focuses on adapting evidence-based therapies into robotic platform. The robot used various traditional methods for intervention of ASD children such as Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) therapy. In previous literatures, robot is used as supporting tools for the therapist to stimulate and encourage the social skill of the children [3], [4]. The robot collects data from the ASD children to enhance effect of therapy. Various sensors were embedded with the robot to capture and collect information which can be further used to assess ASD children’s behavior. The captured information can be analyzed by therapist for future improvement on the therapy session. The activity of the intervention needs to be helpful in improving ASD children’s social development, skills, or knowledge. To ensure the success of the therapy, cooperation from ASD children is important. It is essential to keep ASD children from losing interest during intervention. ASD children tend to be more comfortable interacting with a robot compared to human [5]. Next, the activity should be simple in nature to encourage ASD children to perform it independently with minimal guidance from the