The Design and Development of Children’s Toy for Sharing Play between Autism Disorder and Ordinary Children

• Main Authors: Cho Chi Hsu, 許倬綺
• Other Authors: K. C. Tseng
• Format: Others
• Published: 2011
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/56200373344995997688

碩士 === 長庚大學 === 工業設計學系 === 99 === Children with autism have great difficulty communicating with others, which has resulted in their being isolated and ignored by society. My study aims to design and develop a type of sharing toy to help autistic children to develop their interpersonal skills. It will also aid in their interaction with autistic and non-autistic children by allowing them to play together. This will improve autistic children’s ability to learn and interact with people; reduce the occurrence of unintended social behaviors; and help them to effectively recover during the early stage of treatment. In our study, we employed novel product designs and development method to design and develop prototypes for a sharing toy. The process involved literature reviews and assessment; case studies; interview with professionals; persona and scenario approach; and converts requirements for autistic children’s social interactions into product design concepts. A prototype for a sharing toy for both children with and without autism to play together is designed. Finally, product validation is performed through professional evaluation and case studies. Content and visual analyses, as well as C statistics are used. Social validity is evaluated based on the Check List for Peer-Interactive Play Rating Scales. The results show that the sharing toy designed in our study encourages active behavior in autistic children, and increases the frequency for interaction during team games where players need to help each other. It improves the original inactive relationships, and changes the gaming mode from parallel to interactive.