Team: Manali/ Svaney Shen/ Zhaolu Song
Brief: Design an Autistic children-friendly museum experience of Science Museum.
Time: July- August
Overview
Designing for autism spectrum disorders explains the influences of the built environment for people with autism from a perspective of environmental psychology. The authors show how the changes of sensory factors, like color, lighting, acoustics, can positively influence them.
The authors, Kristi Gaines, Angela Bourne, Michelle Pearson, and Mesha Kleibrink, are interior designers and their research is related to special education and health.
Types of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)
Generally, individuals with ASD are either hypo-sensitive or hypersensitive to certain information pertaining to smell, sight, taste, sound, touch, vestibular movement or proprioception (Gaines et al., 2016). Hypersensitive cases are often qualified as “sensory-seeking”, meaning they often create or generate their own sensory experiences either for pleasure or to block out other unpleasant stimuli. On the contrary, hyper-sensitivitive cases can be easily overwhelmed by incoming sensory information, for example, strong light.
Types of Autism Spectrum Disorders
Predicable situations
In section 1: Introduction to Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), the authors point out that Individuals with ASD exhibit repetitive, rigid behaviors and they can become quite upset if their routine is disrupted.
Besides, in section 9: Design Considerations for ASD, the authors describe autistic children maybe feel anxious, scared, confused if they go to a new environment. They state that predictable, permanent landmarks also help individuals with ASD orient themselves in a given space and reduce their frustration.
Therefore, known or predicable situations are crucial for children with autism. Connecting it to museum visiting, I think it is very important for them to understand the museum environment and make a clear visiting plan before going. Hence, pre-visiting design should be a significant part.
Sensory Perception
The authors discuss the sensory perception of individuals with ASD in Chapter 2: Designing for the senses. They state that people with ASD have different sensory processing from neurotypical people in terms of smell, sight, taste, sound, touch, vestibular movement or proprioception. It could cause a sensory overload for them if many senses happening at the same time or a rapid shifting between two different stimuli. Since there are so many senses in the museum, we need to think about how to reduce these.
Sensory environment and ASD
Tangible Social Cues
The authors explain that individuals with ASD have difficulties in communication and social interaction because their play does not attract or engage others, usually due to their highly structured and inflexible nature. Besides, it is hard for individuals with ASD to understand the intangible messages, such as emotion, body language and even their own feelings, making conversations difficult. With insufficient social interaction, they are shy away from others and their social skills fall even more behind resulting in loneliness.
Thinking of the documentaries, I think that tangible social cues can be a good bridge for autistic individuals with others. Museum provides so many interactive installations, hands-on objects, which are perfect resources for individuals with ASD to socialize with others.
Summary
These are some of my key findings from this book:
Known or predicable situations are crucial for individuals with ASD so the pre-visiting design should be a significant part.
It could cause a sensory overload for them if many senses happening at the same time or a rapid shifting between two different stimuli.
Individuals with ASD have difficulty in understanding intangible messages, like emotion, body language and their own feelings, but tangible social cues can be helpful.
Next, we will have several museum visits and will conduct AEIOU research for the children there and learn about what the museum is doing for people with special needs.
References
Gaines, K. et al. (2016) Designing for Autism Spectrum Disorders. New York: Routledge.
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