The Autism Society Event and Education Recordings Archive

The main critique of most sensory interventions targeted at the autism population are their lack of objective data that underscores the efficacy of the whole sensory-autism connection. The present research will demonstrate the use of behavioral observation procedures in the determination of sensory needs for participants with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The successful implementation of a novel environmentally designed software-based intervention for the treatment of social skills and behavioral anomalies in persons with an ASD will be discussed. The following presentation will detail how architectural changes within environments can greatly impact behavior and academic performance. The use of a software program from Google called Sketchup will be examined for its utility in helping students with autism design environments more conducive to their needs, both behavioral, and academic. During a 2006 visit to a school for children with autism, architect David Helfrich watched as a teacher led a child down a hallway. One thing was strikingly clear to Helfrich –it’s  time for school designers to pay close attention to the sensory needs of children and adults with an ASD. At Mackey Mitchell Architects, Helfrich and a team of designers are collaborating to find environmental solutions for special needs children, particularly deaf learners and children with an ASD.  Their work has led to innovative designs based on children’s sensory needs, rather than a one-size-fits-all educational blueprint.
Mackey Mitchell has now joined forces with the Judevine Center for Autism to combine their architectural and research expertise to examine how architecture can affect attention, learning, social skills, and vocational potential in students with an ASD. The current research project involves the adaptation of architectural design strategies by considering all the sensory needs of children with ASD, and incorporating them into innovative architectural solutions.
Learning has a huge sensory component. The five senses are the primary pathways to the brain.  The architects at Mackey Mitchell analyze sight, sound, touch, even taste and smell, to craft the perfect multi-sensory environment for each school's population."  The design process begins with the realization that, just as every child has differing sensory and sensory-processing capacities, every child can be seen as having some kind of sensory needs, even those who might be referred to as “typical.”

So how can one school building respond to many different needs, across multiple age levels? "It all comes back to signal and noise," begins Helfrich.  "Think of the signal as each classroom's day-long sensory stream of information – from math to manners, and from science to show and share.  Capturing each child's full sensory attention is essential to all learning."  And as anyone who has worked with ASD learners knows, attention can be elusive, particularly with so many different sources of distraction.  Noise, is how we refer to sensory pitfalls in any building that can derail a child's attention, and it isn't just the noise we can hear. In creating a new elementary school for the Delaware School for the Deaf, Mackey Mitchell focused on each classroom's visual landscape, since deaf and hard-of-hearing children learn primarily through vision. In recent years, technology has enriched the visual signal in DSD's learning spaces. Computers, projectors and interactive whiteboards have been added to the time-honored chalkboard and American Sign Language.  With so much emphasis on signal, attention has been diverted from some highly distracting sources of visual noise.  When windows are placed within a few feet of instruction walls, children are at risk of being distracted by passing  cars or playground friends. Even worse, if a teacher is silhouetted against a bright window near the front of a classroom, children at the back may no longer be able to discern the signed message from the teacher's face and hands.  In that case, noise has actually overcome the signal, and learning stops altogether.
Sensory noise can be more subtle, but equally disruptive. Many special needs schools engage in multi-sensory activities to promote development and to more fully engage their students’ attention.  Art rooms, occupational therapy suites, music rooms, greenhouses and project kitchens are all examples, and each comes with its own sensory noise that can affect nearby classrooms.  Imagine the disruption for the average third grader, trying to focus attention on a difficult math lesson at 11am while simultaneously getting blasted by the smell of cookies baking in the cafeteria down the hall.  When that happens, you've lost that child for the next several minutes.
In designing spaces for children with ASD, Mackey Mitchell employs strategies that attempt to locate the “sensory sweet-spot" for each school population.  It's always about balance. Whether designing for deaf toddlers,  middle-school children with autism, or  the mainstream population, the provision of a stimulating environment without crossing the threshold into distraction and noise is key.  Striking this kind of balance requires an extremely thorough understanding of how children with sensory or cognitive issues deal with various levels of sensory signal and noise. 
To gain the fullest understanding of how Autism Spectrum learners experience and process sensory input in the classroom, David Helfrich set out to engage children at their level. Helfrich volunteers weekly at the Judevine Center in St. Louis, an internationally-acclaimed pioneer in the treatment and training of individuals with ASD and their families. 
He wanted to explore the ability of children with ASD to sketch and draw. Once a week, he works with children at Judevine to understand spatial relationships and how children react to various environments.  By observing their drawings, often beautiful and detailed, Helfrich is beginning to understand how space affects each child, and what characteristics of the space seem important.  “Children are greatly affected by the overall feeling of their classroom,” says Helfrich.  “What may seem to be subtle details can make a world of difference in the child’s ability to block out noise and concentrate on signal.”
With Marcus Adrian's (primary at Mackey Mitchell) work on deaf schools and Helfrich's work with Autism Spectrum children, they've found a whole set of characteristics that appear to be common among most kids, in almost every school. "Transitions are difficult for nearly everyone," says Adrian, "but particularly for kids with  special needs."  As evidenced by the boy who collapsed in the glaring sunlight of a poorly-placed skylight, it's usually in transitional spaces like corridors where things can go wrong.  "This is where you're forcing a somewhat vulnerable person to completely switch gears in a very short period of time – such as transitioning from the quiet calm of a one-on-one speech therapy visit back into the relative chaos of a bright classroom,” remarks Helfrich. “If that transition isn't carefully designed – considering the length of the corridor, color choices, and location of bathrooms along the way – you're setting kids up to fail when they get back in the room."
Spaces designed for a child with ASD should be simple to understand in both building layout and appearance, allowing for easy transitions throughout the day and during their entire educational experience.  Children have to be comfortable with their environment, and the way for them to feel a sense of comfort is to create an environment where different components are easy to understand.  These include window placement, floor patterns, wall colors, room geometry and scale, to name a few. All these vital components must be thoughtfully composed and strategically integrated throughout a building.   
 “If we can design spaces with as few detractors as possible, we can really help these children,” Helfrich says.  “We’re working on designing the ideal school for each population’s needs.”  
Across the country, parents, educators and physicians are agreeing with Mackey Mitchell’s viewpoint and strategies.  Resource centers, often linked with a school or hospital, for children on the Autism Spectrum are beginning to pop up in many states. Mackey Mitchell’s concepts for McClean County’s Autism Society Headquarters are being used to raise funds for their new resource center.
Concepts were developed for computer rooms with training and internet access, whiteboards and sensory walls, as well as a simple, flexible innovative series of modular “cubbies” that serve to filter direct light and provide much-needed storage. “Visual Zoning,” or, defining separate, distinct places without walls, helps to create zones within the classroom for children to learn and explore through multiple sensory experiences. These zones were achieved by hanging beads between spaces within the room, changing floor materials, and using various lighting effects. 
As families and communities seek solutions to what seems like an epidemic of ASD, Mackey Mitchell anticipates that partnerships of private and public organizations will become more common. They’re even looking beyond schools to adaptations for homes and playgrounds. The possibilities are limitless as long as there are families and professionals seeking ways to help children with ASD.
Two studies examining  the aforementioned concepts will be described in detail with outcome data. Initially, we want to determine if the challenges in social skills and environmental sensitivity in individuals with an ASD can be impacted through environmental design. The present project seeks to determine if changes in key environmental elements such as room lighting, room noise, etc. can impact performance on academic tasks for individuals with an ASD.
Study 1- Participants will be asked to sit at a desk and complete a worksheet containing addition and subtraction problems with numbers less than or equal to 10. Each session will be 15 minutes in length. At no time prior to during, or after the time that the participant is working on the worksheet will he/she be given any feedback related to the accuracy or rate of their work. These 15 minute sessions will be conducted 2 times per week, with the first session being completed in the existing classroom at the facility. The participant will then be questioned as to some of his/her preferences and an assessment administered related to what elements of the environment would be more conducive to him/her performing better on the academic task. The key environmental changes identified in the assessment will be made. The academic task described above will then be presented a second time with the aforementioned changes in place. Both the baseline (typical classroom conditions), and the restructured environment will be used in a reversal design to determine the differences between the two phases in the accuracy and productivity of the participants in the study.
Study 2 - The second study will be conducted targeting environmental restructuring by the participants in the study.  Two groups of 4 participants will go through an 8 week educational curriculum related to using the computer design program Google Sketchup.
Baseline - Prior to this curriculum, they will be evaluated relative to their use of identified social skills (eye contact, turn taking, joint attention, and other overt measurable behaviors) while working with the instructor and other peers in the study. These sessions will be conducted in the classroom setting used initially.
Intervention - The participants will go through an 8 week curriculum using the Google software program Sketchup. The participants will be allowed to design environments that would the most conducive to their optimal level of functioning from a sensory perspective while engaging in academic tasks or other activities. While engaging in the software curriculum, specific aspects of their social skills repertoire will be assessed. Additional functions of the computer software package will be employed to provide social skills assessment and training in a virtual environment. Some of the same behavioral and social skills issues that were observed in the baseline phase of study will be observed and recorded while engaging in the computerized design task.
The degree to which these individuals can then change key elements of their environment via the use of a computerized software package will then be examined as well as the impact of social skills functioning, and academic performance while using the software package. Virtual social situations and potentially stressful events will be presented to enhance in-vivo functioning in these situations. Data will be presented that shows the performance of the aforementioned students prior to work with the Google software, and after their 8 week curriculum has been delivered.

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