AutiBuddy

For my bachelor graduation project I have been working on a tool for children with Autism; the AutiBuddy. Children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) encounter a wide variety of problems in their everyday life. One of these problems is that they often find it difficult to deal with the all the sensory stimuli the world around them provides them with. Often these stimuli can become overwhelming causing a lot of stress. The AutiBuddy is a conceptual tool that through the combination of smart modern technology and proven methodology is aimed to help children with an ASD to identify stress and tension that is building up and to empower them to take action.The head of the AutiBuddy is made of soft foam and can be used to fiddle with; something children with an ASD do increasingly when their stress levels and levels of tensions rise. A couple of sensors register when the child is fiddling with the head and can detect when the interval with which is fiddled and the strength of the movements and relay this data to the body in which additional electronics is embedded to analyse the data.Through the analyses the level of tension is determined and depending on the level of tension, the body of the AutiBuddy will work as an imaginary thermometer that indicates the tension level. This is based on the well-known and widely applied anger-thermometer. Depending on the level of tension, the head of the AutiBuddy will glow in a specific color. This color indicates that the child should perform a specific intervention strategy; while blue could for example mean it was agreed the child should be withdrawing oneself from the busy classroom, red could indicate the child would need to go to the teacher to ask for help.