Designing for Autism

From several years of experience in being a young carer for my little brother who was diagnosed with mild autism at the age of 5, i developed a fascination in the way autistic children interact and communicate with the world. From further research on the psychology of colours and from day to day observations of ways certain aspects of design help to break down language barriers and alter concentration levels, i was eager to look into designing for the autistic.

The most common differences that may be analysed through autistic children's behaviour are lack of concentration and focus thus being easily distracted as well as behaviour issues leading mainstream products to be a hazard to many children. 

The differences of autistic children should be tackled and equally invested into than those children who are able. Design flourishes to embrace differences.

There seems to be a gap in the market in terms of products that adapt to the needs of autistic children in order for them to concentrate and focus outside of school. Specifically from domestic aspects, there isn't a variety of help out there for parents to encourage bonding or even continuing studies outside of the school environment. This could possibly be due to the routined nature of autistic children. However, surely a specification could be met to please both the child and guardian.

My mother is a prime example of someone who fails to communicate with her autistic child during certain situations. She expresses how sometimes its hard to sit down and interact with my brother as he finds it so hard to focus or concentrate on academic activities outside of school.

Here are some of my CAD design ideas
I hope to develop throughout this year..

I am aware that the common idiosyncrasies of an autistic child must be taken into consideration throughout the design process. Many autistic children are unaware of danger making it more of a risk to design for them in a way were there are hard surfaces, corners or even complicated open and closing features which could cause the child to become trapped. Another reason behind designing to carefully for the autistic is their unexpected behaviour. Some of these children become frustrated and agitated when not being able to express themselves or when they are misunderstood by others which is very common and therefore become very moody or violent.

Besides the limits on materials and simple design, autistic children have amazing talents which can be taken advantage of by designers. They observe the world from a different perspective. Imagine how much more we would learn if we spoke less and just listened. Some of these common talents range from having photographic memory, being extremely creative or even navigating the internet by typing in URL codes, because google search engine is of course too mainstream.