Mediating the world

What is Autism?

“Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) represents a broad range of pervasive developmental disorders characterized by limitations in initiating and sustaining social communication and interactions, in addition to the presence of repetitive behaviors”

There are many theories in relation to what causes Autism, but the cause of Autism has not been found. Various research proves that Autism may be influenced by several factors: environmental, genetic and non-genetic influences. One of the main criteria for someone on the Autism spectrum is that they have behavioral issues; this issue could be as mild as an inability to focus on certain tasks or as extreme as self-injury behavior. Parents or guardians of autistic children may choose to administer medications, therapy, or both, to help lessen the effects of Autism on the brain. Presently medicines for autism are unpredictable, expensive, and may require years of trial and error until finding the one that works for one specific child. Due to this, parents often opt for therapy for their children, which has been proven to be the most effective method of treatment. Some of the therapy departments that I will consider in this paper are:

• ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis): This therapy focuses on a reward system that tries to teach the individuals how to control and manage their behavior. The control of behavior is the main purpose of this therapy.
• S&L therapy (Speech and Language therapy): This therapy focuses on the production of speech and learning language. This is often separated from other therapies because it works with the specific articulation of each sound in a word and creating a word bank for the children which is a function that many Autistic children have trouble with.
• OT (Occupational Therapy): This therapy focuses on giving outlets for sensory experience that are beneficial and stimulating instead of harmful. For example, a type of behavior that some Autistic individuals have is banging their head which stimulates the vestibular system in the brain. In a case like this the occupational therapist may show the child a swing in order to stimulate the same part of the brain. Brain development in these children is measured in months and years. For example, a 7 year old could have the education level of a 3 year old, but still be able to make 2 months’ progress every month. This means that this child can recover, however some other children could have a progress rate of 0.5 months per month which means that while they continue to progress they will also continue to be behind. These progress levels are measured by the number of goals that the child can master/ complete in a year.

Special Education

The collaboration of various kinds of therapies is essential for these children to thrive and learn. Since 1975 in the US it is compulsory for special needs school-aged children to be accommodated in their public school systems. Unfortunately, there is not nearly enough funding for these schools to provide the children what they need. According to Mona Kassem, founder of Autism Alliance, an autism therapy center. She has seen children progress 0.5 months per month in a public school and with the education system they need can progress at a rate of 3 months per. Unfortunately for some parents this is not something they can easily test because they cannot afford to create and manage a home education system when the public systems don’t provide the educational approaches these children need. Of critical concern is: What has happened to these individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic?

After contacting and speaking with some specialists in special education as well as Autism, it has become apparent to me that one of the biggest problems with virtual on-line experiences required by our current situation is that Autistic children struggle with the lack of sensory input and distractions in the programs. I know this to be true, firsthand. I have a 9 year old brother on the Autism Spectrum and from watching him try online learning, I have seen that these online platforms are primarily designed for business meetings and often distill down to only two options: sharing a screen or seeing a person talk about their topic. There are few visual aids you can add, and there are no physical aids. Even if there is an online activity for the children the teacher doesn’t have the ability to interact with the child’s screen, they can only guide the children through theirs, which is difficult even for typical children. It also means that the parents must be present all the time to assist the children in opening the various programs/ activities. In addition students with special needs often rely on specialized coaching and instruction like cues or sensory activities that keep them on task; which would take more time out of a parent’s day to learn.

Requirments and Ideas

Teaching special education children distills down to four important rules; (1) Visual aid of the schedule of each session as well as each task, (2) rewards and sensory integration, (3), repetition and (4) providing visual & auditory aids.

1. In order to make sure there is structure educators will often provide a visual aid of the schedule of each session as well as each task to keep the students motivated to move forward. This schedule will often include each task, the duration or the number of times.
2. Sensory material has to be customized based on the child’s varied needs and what they enjoy. For example, a sensory break for one child could be going on the swing which engages their vestibular system; a part of the brain responsible for the balance in the body. Slime is another great sensory tool because it can be enjoyed by both hypo sensitive (less sensitive to stimuli) as well as hypersensitive (more sensitive to stimuli) children. In the US between 5%- 16% of children have difficulty processing sensory input in daily lives. The sensory integration is often the same as a reward system for a child because it is a productive way to use the sessions time, but also to ensure the child doesn’t feel overwhelmed. The child can also be motivated by food, or access to a game/ toy during the session time, as their reward. This is a section that will depend on the diagnosis and the plan put in place by the occupational therapist of the child’s team. Many parents with Autistic children have a specific toy that calms them down or soothes their specific needs. Oftentimes therapists or the team the child is working with will send home some additional sensory materials such as a rice bowl, play-dough, shaving cream, kinetic sand, paint and textiles with textures.
3. The repetition requirement depends on the student’s retention rate of learning and the priority level of the information. One of the most successful curriculums for Autistic and special needs individuals is ACE (Autism Curriculum Encyclopedia), specifically designed to teach kids who have problems with focus, attention, behavior and other problems that special needs children may face. The curriculum details steps on how to teach children “respond to their name” up to vocational tasks such as “checking out of a grocery store.” The curriculum’s success is based on repetition and creating a positive reinforcement environment and system for the child.
4. Visual and auditory aids are the most important part of any interface designed for autistic children, the child’s team may choose to use pictures of the objects the child uses, a symbol system to generalize objects or a combination of both. There are also visual and auditory equipment that many of these children need in order to be successful and learn the material in their educational plans. These can vary from images of the vocabulary they are learning, shapes that they are learning, images of the numbers and quantities to learn math, stories and many other educational materials.

According to Reyna, an ABA therapist working during the COVID-19 pandemic the biggest challenge in working virtually is trying to educate children with focus and attention deficits when working on non- compliance programs. Non- compliance programs are programs that require more physical help for students, and for those programs the therapist will try to explain them to parents and assign them as homework. The parents will then try to replicate the same things that they have in a regular session in person, such as if they use a token system or a timer system. Reyna has a positive outlook to online learning for her children, she sees that it is helping them become more independent in 7 their learning and she is confident in her student’s abilities to learn to set up and do the sessions independently at different paces.

Having a big computer/ laptop be the main tool of communication can prove to be difficult especially when working on self- help skills such as brushing your teeth, because the therapist is unable to see the student when they have the laptop. An alternative would be to use a tablet, the tablet version of conferencing apps are not as versatile and usually don’t allow the teachers to control the child’s screen or see what they are doing. Some of the activities given during break time also have an educational aspect which can also prove to be harder to track and take data on.

One of the biggest market gaps is in the apps available for special education children is to be able to simultaneously collect data, as well as teach the child what to do virtually. This has helped me collect information on the essential gaps and areas of improvement in the apps available and design a system for both the educators and the students to approach special education more successfully.

Taking all of this into account my goal will be to create a calming and easily accessible interface that works on all devices, allows for creating a clear outline of the sessions, includes both a timer function as well as a token system, a reinforcement system that allows the student to focus on the task, allows the student and teacher to easily access each other and allows for outside app integrations for various auditory and visual aids during the session.

Final Design & Solution

My solution is to create a classroom interface that primarily focuses on allowing individualism in the future for Autistic children. Firstly I wanted to address the ease of access for the students to the software so I decided to stick to the following color palette:

Another main aspect that would allow my website to be easy to read and understand is the font that I would choose to use. My final font choice is Andika; one of the most effective fonts for communicating to children.