User Centric Evidence Based Inclusive School Design Guidelines for Children with Autism

Background: Autism is a developmental disorder that leads to a different and characteristic pattern of perceiving, thinking and learning. To design a supportive learning environment for autism, it is necessary to understand behavioral pattern of children and its relation with the physical environment.  The present study employs an evidence based research method to explore the effect of environmental settings in educational spaces on children with autism for universal access and application.

Objectives: The current study develops a framework that works as a tool for designing high performance autism friendly educational spaces beneficial for all. Largely, the aim of the study is to recognize the environmental aspects effecting performance of children with autism, measure their impact on learning and then develop a set of guidelines for architects and designers to design autism friendly educational settings. The study also makes an effort to explore the effect of the identified environmental aspects on able-bodied children to establish a base for Universal Design.

Methods: The research process followed in the current study mostly derives from environment-behavior research methods. It employs several research approaches; sequentially starting with a concept, it draws from accumulated knowledge, existing theories and preliminary field survey to formulate the hypothesis. The hypothesis is then tested to verify the concept for the purposes, those can be generalized. There are several stages to this research study; in initial stages, learning behaviors of children in educational spaces helped in identifying ‘eighteen environmental design parameters’ that are enabling for autism. These eighteen design parameters are tested in the subsequent stages to provide evidence based body of knowledge to design autism friendly and inclusive educational spaces. Although the overall study considers many design aspects such as observation, survey and evaluation, the main purpose of this presentation is to discuss design guidelines of inclusive educational environment for children with autism.

Results: An extensive survey is carried out in the research and data is collected from sixteen educational spaces in USA and six in India. Overall rating of identified design parameters is done by eighteen autism experts and also from fourteen regular education experts. The research samples represent all age groups, elementary, middle and primary; different type of educations settings, inclusive and specialized; different education experts, autism and regular education, and different cultural context in the countries- developed and developing. The empirical data is then structured, compared and analyzed both intimately and distantly at the same time. Manifest and latent inferences from observations are drawn to answer the research questions and formulate autism friendly design guidelines.

Conclusions: With escalating incidence of autism and advent of inclusive education, it has become vital to explore the scope of environmental design for autism. The present research is a sequential progression that stands on existing body of knowledge, to produce environmental design guidelines those are enabling for children with autism. Using a research process, with pre-established foundations, it generates new evidence based knowledge, to design supportive, accessible and inclusive learning environment for all children with and without autism.