· · · Institutional Repository

People with autism perceive everything as a whole. They do not distinguish a foreground and a background. Causing them to see way more details than we do. Often they are hypersensitive or hyposensitive to certain kinds of sensory input. Stimuli can be very intense, painfully intense. Or they (almost) can’t reach their system, producing a distorted image of the environment. Being afraid of incentives that might, or might not, come doesn’t facilitate the learning process. In order for autistic people to learn new things, the architect should design a space where they can feel relatively safe and comfortable.

This master thesis shows the design process of LINKX, a language toy for children with a disorder in the spectrum of autism. Children with autism have an inborn brain disorder and therefore play and learn differently than children with 'typical' development. Language and speech of children with autism develops slowly or not at all. These children's 'different being' indicates a need for different toys. Main goal of this project was to design a toy that stimulates language development in a playful way. Insight in how autistic children play and learn was mainly gained by high involvement throughout the whole process of autistic children, their parents, and their pedagogues. These children: Beer, Robbert and Jakob, played a leading role in this process. I observed them at home, at school, and at speech therapy, and interviewed their parents and pedagogues. Exploration resulted in a design framework for autistic children in which control, direct feedback, rewards, repetition, and memory, are important elements. After this exploration I realized that already within these three children there was much variation in needs. For example, the language development stage, in which children differed. A found similarity was that all children have trouble with giving meaning to words. Therefore they should learn to word objects in their environment. With this framework in mind, ideas were generated. The idea with most potential regarding interaction was chosen and evaluated with parents. Their opinions contributed in further concept development and eventually led to LINKX, the final design of this project. This design aims for a connection on three levels: motor, cognitive, and emotional. On motor level children literally link play-elements together and thereby receive a visual and audio reward. On cognitive level, the children are triggered to link an object with a word. On emotional level LINKX aims to connect parent and child by providing a way to play together. LINKX is elaborated into an experiential prototype and tested in several play-sessions with the participating children. Parents took on the role of co-researcher, because they are expert on their child's behaviour and feelings. The child's play served as reference for evaluation, both for me as for the parents. In general the children enjoyed playing with LINKX. They laughed and repeatedly linked elements to hear the sound and let it move. The characteristics described in the framework seemed to be true. Especially when the prototype did not function as expected, the importance of 'giving sense of control' was evident. For the future I hope that my framework can inform and inspire other designers to develop more toys that facilitate the learning process of children with autism. With growing technological possibilities, technique can help these children learn more, and thereby let them be more able to cope with life.

The aim of the project is to design a product or device that will enable autistic children to practice emotional expressions with the use of PrEmo animations. It will have to grow with the capabilities of the children and it will have to trigger the children to explore and learn. The product will be aiming at autistic children between 6 and 10 years of age that have no deficits in mental capabilities. These are the children who struggle most with their social problems during puberty. Snapje is an iPhone app. to learn emotions to autistic children in everyday life. The parent or caretaker makes photo’s with his iPhone from situations in which the child is part of or from familiar people. With these photos and the PrEmos games can be played. The iPhone has an additional cover with key cord that protects the iPhone from falling, bumping or breaking. Not only does it protect, it also brings more structure to the game in giving feedback on who’s turn it is. In the settings menu, players can chose their own character with belonging colour. The colour, lighting up from the RGB-leds in the cover, correspond with the colours of the characters that have been chosen. The level can be changed in the settings menu as well. A photo is opened and parent and child can play a game with the photo in which they both have to tag the photo with an emotion. The turns are well addressed by the coloured cover and the characters. The game can be played very openly, discussing what emotions take place, but it can also be played in a way you only know afterwards if the same emotion or different emotions have been chosen by parent and child. If the child selects an emotion that is identical to one chosen by the parent, the child gets directly extra reward. Afterwards it is clear who has chosen which emotion, by coloured distinctions similar to the colours of the players. This can be discussed, and the importance of emotions can be defined. In addition to this game the child can play four other games on his own. Match and Memory make the child familiarize with the emotions. With the other two games the photos can be reviewed. This happens either in a passive mode in which the PrEmo’s are visible or in an active mode in which the child has to choose which PrEmo belongs to the photo. Snapje is a fun way to learn emotions in relation to it’s context! Fun! The younger children do not only have a big interest in reviewing photos of themselves and familiar people, they also like the PrEmo-animations. Useful! Snapje interests the younger children who can still learn from situations in which they played a role themselves. It raises awareness to the emotions that took place in relation to the context. Intelligent children over ten years might have less interest in playing the game in their spare time. However, the game is useful for them when played with photos of strangers and situations in which they were not present. Adaptable! Parent and child find their own way to play Snapje. Either in an open or competitive way. Snapje stimulates playing together! The play-in-turns, create structure and clearity. Not only the child revives situations and becomes aware of emotions that have occurred with themselves and around them, but the parent can get more insights on the child’s emotions as well. Parents are enthusiastic about Snapje and eager to make photos for the game, if their child can still learn about emotions that occur by usage of these photos.

For people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) it is usually hard to find a job and stay employed: only few of them have a paid job. Often a person with ASD is capable of performing professional activities, but encounters problems with the social context of a job environment. People with autism have impairments in socialization, communication and imagination. These lead to problems with social interaction, misunderstandings and reduced empathy. In a professional context this might cause tension between employees with autism and their coworkers. Furthermore, these problems lead to a lot of tension in the person with autism himself. This tension decreases the level of functioning and reinforces the impairments. When tension builds up people with autism might respond in an undesired way, which eventually might lead to them getting fired. To stimulate job participation of this group, the Leo Kannerhuis started a number of projects. This graduation project, executed at Waag Society in Amsterdam, covers the design of a stress monitor for employees with autism. The stress monitor should raise awareness on the stress the user experiences during a day at work and it should help the user to deal with this stress. This project explored the technical possibilities to measure stress as well as the user’s context in order to develop an appropriate design proposal. Experts were involved in the fields of autism, stress, physiology and sensor technology. Furthermore, clients of the Leo Kannerhuis were involved as representatives for the target group. In multiple sessions their context and wishes were explored and finally the concept models were evaluated. The involvement of all these people was very valuable in this process and helped to develop a design proposal. Heart Rhythm Variability (HRV) turned out to be the most reliable indicator of stress. From user studies it became clear that it is important to the target users that the solution is not stigmatizing. Some employees with autism do not even want their coworkers to know that they have an ASD. Integrating an electret microphone in a wrist watch is proposed as a solution to measure HRV in a non-stigmatizing way. From HRV the user’s level of stress is deduced and the user is informed on high levels of stress using the ‘pebble’. The pebble is a stone-shaped object that attracts the user’s attention by means of a vibration signal and informs the user on the stress measured by means of colored lights. Furthermore, it provides the user with a breathing pattern in order to relax in times of stress. The user is also provided with the possibility to respond to the measured stress level by adjusting the stress color according to his feelings. On the long term, this self-reflection might even help the user to identify indicators of stress himself. The design of the pebble allows the user to choose the preferred way of using it. The pebble can be put in the user’s pocket to avoid a stigmatizing effect, or it can be placed on one’s desk to involve coworkers in dealing with stress. All stress data is recorded and can be accessed via a personal reflection website. Most people with autism have a job coach that visits them at work regularly. The visualization of stress data can be used in these meetings to identify problems and reflect on them. In the long term it might even help to try and avoid stressful situations. An appropriate job increases self-esteem and contributes to the perceived quality of life. This report presents a design proposal as a direction for further development. Hopefully the continuation of this project will help people with an ASD in their daily work.

During the last decade, the development of technologies is changing the meaning of technology in our daily life. The development of intelligent products immerses us in technology and therefore it no longer stands in the background. This ubiquitous technology and new smart computing systems interact with humans and become more than just context alone; they become part of us. This raises many questions about the integration of such a system in society, but it also offers opportunities to address societal needs that have not been addressed before. One of these societal needs is the support and education of children who have sensory processing disorders. Children with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) experience difficulties with the neurological processing of incoming sensory signals. Due to this disorder, these children encounter social, communicational and educational problems in stressful situations where they are oversensitive to the sensory input. The goal of this project was to develop a wearable appliance that supports children with SPD (8 to 14 years old) during SPD-related stressful situations in order to reduce the intensity of the stress. The principle of Deep Pressure Therapy was combined with sensor- and actuator technology to develop a smart system that (1) recognizes stressful situations, (2) applies pressure to remove stress symptoms and (3) evaluates and adapts the treatment to the user. The concept that was developed uses a heart rate and a respiration rate sensor to determine when the child experiences stress. The child wears an inflatable vest, which is inflated when the heart rate and respiration rate increase (i.e. a stressful situation). This inflation provides deep pressure - a strong tactile stimulus - to the upper part of the torso of the child, which organizes the signal processing in the child’s brain. A prototype was constructed, which consists of an inflatable vest and a sweatshirt that contains the pump, the microcontroller and the electronics that connect the different elements of the system. The Squease Vest, provided by Squeasewear, contains air compartments that can be inflated to apply pressure to the torso of the user. The respiration belt consists of a stretchable conducting rubber cord, whose resistance changes when it is stretched. A heart rate sensor is located around the left index finger of the user, which responds to the changing colour of the skin when blood passes through the veins. A photodiode detects the colour difference skin in order to determine the heart rate. The Arduino microcontroller takes care of the signal processing between the different components of the system. It receives the signals from the heart rate sensor and the respiration rate sensor as input, and it determines the output signal for the pump. The prototype was tested among children with SPD, autism and ADHD. The usability tests have shown that the automatic application of deep pressure during stressful moments had a positive effect on the behaviour and the attention regulation of children with SPD (4 out of 5 test cases). However, the functionality test of the prototype showed that the heart rate and respiration rate sensors were too inaccurate for long-term testing. The project concludes with a proposition for technical, usability and market implementation aspects for a full-scale product. The proposed product keeps the overall price (400 Euro), weight (400 grams) and power consumption (58 mAh) within its boundaries. Overall it can be concluded that this project made a promising start in the development of a smart appliance for children with SPD, but that additional research, testing and development are required in order to develop a full-scale implementation of the appliance.