[Bronze Award] TOUCH friends - Social Intervention Interactive Product Design for Children with Autism
TOUCH friends - Social Intervention Interactive Product Design for Children with Autism
作者 / 袁雪晴 指导教师：孙帅
作品说明
TOUCH friends 基于“数字疗法”为自闭症儿童构建线上线下相结合的干预治疗系统。该产品通过感官体验帮助自闭症儿童营造社交场景，学习社交技能；自然地引导自闭症儿童与普通儿童的社交互动，协助其构建同伴互动关系。该产品还提供数字化平台串联干预治疗机构、家庭、融合教育学校三大主要干预场景，以满足自闭症儿童干预时长，实现全场景式持续干预，协调多方参与者的共同关注。
TOUCH friends is building an online and offline intervention treatment system for children with autism based on "digital therapy". This product helps children with autism create social scenes and learn social skills through sensory experience, naturally guiding their social interactions with ordinary children, and assisting them in building peer interaction relationships. This product also provides a digital platform to connect three main intervention scenarios: intervention and treatment institutions, families, and integrated education schools, in order to meet the intervention duration for children with autism, achieve continuous intervention throughout the entire scene, and coordinate the common attention of multiple participants.
Challenge
In today's society, children with autism face tremendous challenges in establishing effective social relationships with their peers. In the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition), autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by impairments in social interaction and communication, making it difficult for children to understand and respond to the emotions of others, Verbal and non-verbal signals. The complexity of social interactions often appears more difficult for this special group.
In a traditional social environment, autistic children may often feel isolated and have difficulty adapting to group activities, which not only has a negative impact on their development, but also places a heavy burden on their families. Lack of effective social skills may affect their integration in school, community and other social situations, limiting their opportunities to form deep relationships with others. Therefore, social intervention is crucial to help children with autism overcome these challenges and improve their social skills.
The concept of inclusive education advocates integrating students with different abilities and special needs into the same education system to provide equal learning opportunities for every student. Integrated education is most likely to be effective in the preschool education stage. If individualized and differentiated education can be effectively implemented during this period to increase their opportunities to interact with ordinary children of the same age, it will have many improvements for children with physical and mental disabilities.
At the same time, many families may not be able to afford expensive autism rehabilitation treatments. In this context, digital therapy has become a viable option. Digital therapy provides customized rehabilitation programs through technological means, allowing families to obtain high-quality social intervention services more economically and conveniently.
Process
Going deep into the field of social disorder intervention, inclusive education provides autistic children with more opportunities to observe, initiate social interactions, and respond to ordinary children. This educational environment significantly promotes the social development of autistic children; at the same time, satisfactory social relationships and good Related to their mental and physical health, in an inclusive education environment, autistic students can benefit from contact with typical peers and build good interpersonal relationships together. Through peer intervention, that is, by cultivating ordinary children with social abilities to guide autistic children to establish appropriate social models, their social abilities can be improved and social development can be achieved.
In the communication with the shadow teacher Mr. Li, the designer found that currently there are fewer opportunities for social interaction and less effective social interaction between children with typical development and children with autism, which makes it difficult to achieve the positive effects of inclusive education.
Based on the above research, the designer proposed design issues and goals, hoping to create a more inclusive and supportive integrated education environment through the professional methodology of peer intervention.
The designer conducted a 5-day user survey at the Changsha Aifu Autistic Children Education Center, recorded user behavior observation diaries, drew user portraits, and summarized their social and language development stages, cognitive understanding abilities, and motor abilities. , social willingness and ability to initiate social interaction, etc.
During this process, the designer conducted an in-depth analysis of the observed results and launched a preliminary exploration of solutions. Through in-depth interviews with experts, she further refined and refined the key principles of the design.
The designer sorted out the relevant stakeholders, analyzed the relationship between autistic children and their families, schools and treatment institutions, and distinguished their vertical or horizontal interactive relationships with autistic children.
In these three directions, the designers empathized from the perspectives of parents, therapists, and integrated teachers, carefully observed and discovered the key points:
Pain points: Intervention and treatment scenarios for social disorders for autism are fragmented and of insufficient duration; intervention and treatment for social disorders in family settings lack professional guidance; there is information gap in communication between treating physicians, inclusive education teachers and parents.
Opportunities: At this stage, the main form of social interaction between most autistic children and ordinary children is physical interaction; effective interaction between autistic children and ordinary children can help ordinary children better understand the behavioral habits of autistic children; most autistic children Children with autism spectrum disorder are sensitive to sensory input.
In addition, during the research, the designers also analyzed the existing products for autistic children on the market and deeply explored their shortcomings. These products mainly focus on social rule training and verbal communication, with card games as the main type. The game methods are single and have high requirements on children's speech ability and initiative. Moreover, language communication guided by game mechanisms often lacks motivation.
In order to improve these shortcomings, designers hope to propose a social disorder intervention product that uses social interaction among peers as the main method. She emphasizes enhancing children's interactive experience through the intervention of sensory experience, weakening traditional game mechanisms, focusing on developing inclusive interaction methods, and creating more realistic communication scenes to enhance children's social cognition.
Finally, the designers gained an in-depth understanding of the current situation of autistic children, including their interaction and communication methods, and introduced the concept of social contact to provide more specific and "tactile" guidance for the design.
Outcomes
The designer proposed "TOUCH friends", which uses touch as a communication bridge. This is a comprehensive intervention and treatment system for autistic children that integrates online and offline dual modes.
The design is dedicated to building a real social scene through sensory experience, providing an environment for simulating social interaction for autistic children. The designer focuses on peer intervention methods, guiding autistic children to interact socially with typically developing children in a natural way to help them build peer interaction relationships. The connection of digital platforms connects treatment institutions, families and inclusive education schools, forming a comprehensive support network. This full-scene continuous intervention helps meet the needs of autistic children in different environments, while coordinating the attention of multiple participants to provide more organic treatment support.
The usage scenarios are divided into single-person teaching mode and peer interaction mode.
In terms of physical products, designers have fully considered all aspects of the form: the base form is mainly based on the upper body, with emphasis on roundness and smoothness; the touch module form is mainly based on the base hand area, and each touch module has a unique shape and texture. And distinguish behavioral emotions through color.
Online services are divided into four functional modules:
First, social skills learning. Through carefully designed learning content and integration with touch devices, we provide highly interactive and interesting social skills training.
Second, record the intervention process. Through real-time recording and analysis, it helps families, treatment institutions and educational schools more comprehensively understand children's development status, and provides strong support for personalized intervention.
Third, the three parties of the community help each other. By sharing experiences and supporting each other, we focus on the growth of each autistic child and promote information exchange and sharing.
Fourth, learn intervention knowledge. Through digital platforms, the latest therapeutic intervention knowledge is delivered to families, treatment institutions and educational schools to ensure that they can understand and apply the most effective intervention methods in a timely manner.
Finally, the designers returned to Changsha Aifu Autism Children’s Education Center for prototype testing.
Impact
The design of TOUCH friends is not only a digital therapy product, but also a reflection of a deep understanding of the social interaction of autistic children and active intervention. Its integrated online and offline, full-scenario treatment system provides more comprehensive and considerate intervention services for autistic children, integrating social scenes into sensory experiences to guide children to naturally develop social skills. Through peer intervention, the product creates more opportunities for social interaction, establishes appropriate social patterns, and strengthens appropriate social behaviors, thus effectively promoting the social development of autistic children.
In the design of the product, we focus on the three major scenarios of family, school and treatment institution to achieve a full range of continuous intervention and expand the focus from a single treatment environment to children's daily life. At the same time, the online service module of the product provides a digital platform for parents, therapists and integrated teachers, promoting the common attention of multiple participants and forming a closer cooperation network.
In the future, we look forward to seeing more service designs for autistic children based on deep understanding and innovative technology, which can deeply explore the needs of autistic children from a broader and all-round perspective and combine advanced technology to provide them with more personalized and warm services. Attentive service. As society's awareness of inclusion and equality gradually increases, we hope that future designs can further expand the social space for autistic children and help them better integrate into society.
