Authentication challenges for people with neurodevelopmental disorders

Abstract: We live in a world where we increasingly depend on information technology, as much of our work and education occurs online, often from home. An average user has an increasing amount of accounts for all kinds of online services, making authentication more and more important. As people authenticate several times a day, it is important that everyone is able to use online services and authenticate themselves, including minorities such as individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders. This thesis explores the challenges people with neurodevelopmental disorders have with authentication as well as authentication methods that can help them. This was achieved by doing a systematic literature review on collected bibliography with the help of thematic analysis. 18 studies were analyzed and helped us answer the research questions and give us an overview of the research field. The analysis showed that text-based authentication was a big issue for individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders, where passwords were often highlighted as the culprit. Alternative authentication methods were identified but showed us that there was no easy fix to the issue at hand, and that more had to be done to make authentication more accessible.