"I Felt Like I Was in a Fishbowl": Lived Experience with Telepresence and Non-Visible Disabilities in Higher Education
Hanlin Zhang, Yifan Feng, Adam Walker, Jennifer A. Rode · 2025 · ASSETS 2025: 27th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility · doi:10.1145/3663547.3746363
Summary
This paper presents the first ethnographic study of telepresence robot use by students with non-visible disabilities in higher education. The researchers conducted a 10-week ethnography in a postgraduate seminar course at University College London, where students could attend class remotely via four different brands of telepresence robots (Double 3, Beam+, Beam Pro, and Ohmni Pro). Ten participants were recruited from a mixed-ability class of twelve students, five of whom self-identified as disabled — including students with neurodivergent conditions (autism, ADHD), mental health conditions (anxiety, PTSD, depression), and diabetes. The study used participant observation, ethnographic field-notes, weekly surveys, a participatory design session, and semi-structured interviews to capture rich qualitative data. Importantly, the research team itself was majority-disabled, with the professor and multiple research assistants identifying as disabled and/or neurodivergent, which significantly shaped rapport-building and data interpretation. The paper adopts the social model of disability to frame telepresence use, explicitly challenging the medical model approach that dominates much assistive technology research. Rather than viewing telepresence as a tool to "fix" or "normalize" disabled students, the authors examine how telepresence mediates embodied classroom participation and how structural and environmental factors create barriers.
Key findings
The study reveals several barriers specific to neurodivergent and mentally ill students using telepresence robots. For neurodivergent participants, audio distortion was a major issue — robots amplified background noise (keyboard clicks, door sounds, ambient chatter), triggering sensory overload particularly for students with autism-related sound hypersensitivity. Spatial sensitivity was another concern, with autistic participants experiencing visceral discomfort when classmates approached the robot too closely, extending real-world personal space boundaries into the mediated environment. For students with mental health conditions, anxiety and loss of control were central themes. One student with anxiety described feeling "in a fishbowl" — overwhelmed by audio-visual distortions, pixelation, and inability to control the experience. A student with PTSD reported hypervigilance about who was behind the robot. However, the study also found that empathetic technical support from peers, flexible participation (ability to log out and rejoin without stigma), and thoughtful training could mitigate many barriers. A diabetic distance learner found the robot uniquely helpful for managing their condition while attending class. The authors propose design recommendations including adaptive audio processing to filter background noise, rear-facing display screens for robot identification, structured training programs for both remote and local participants, and inclusive classroom management practices.
Relevance
This paper makes an important contribution by centering non-visible disabilities in telepresence research, a field that has predominantly focused on physical disabilities in K-12 settings. As telepresence technologies become more common in higher education — accelerated by the pandemic — understanding how they interact with neurodivergence, mental health conditions, and other non-visible disabilities is critical. The finding that robots can amplify sensory sensitivities has direct implications for anyone deploying telepresence in inclusive classrooms. The social model framing is particularly valuable, shifting attention from individual deficits to environmental and technological barriers that can be redesigned. The design recommendations — adaptive audio, spatial boundary awareness training, empathetic tech support, flexible participation norms — are practical and transferable to other remote participation technologies. The study also raises important questions about masking and disability disclosure in technology-mediated environments that deserve further exploration.
Tags: telepresence · non-visible disability · neurodiversity · mental health · higher education · ethnography · autism · ADHD · PTSD · social model of disability