Blocs
A toy for children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, to help with development.
October 2019
The Brief:
Design a children’s toy.
The goal of the toy:
To help children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) ages 2-7 slowly become more easily able to adapt to change in their everyday lives through changes in play.
To use:
Using laminated cards, instruct the child to assemble the front side of the card. Once they have completed it, they likely will attempt to repeat it over and over. As they are repeating it, flip the card over and encourage the child to make the change that the card instructs. The small change in the design has been proven over time to help the child’s creativity, and their ability to react to change in their lives.
A study done by the University of Rochester Medical Center was done in attempt to better understand the effect of gradual change in repetition in children with an ASD. Instead of attempting to stop the repetitive behaviour altogether, the researchers sought to change it- a new way of going about it autism research.
Concept Generation for the toy
I initially was going to design a multi-sensory block toy for children with an autism spectrum disorder. After some concept generation and research, I decided that I wanted to design a toy that the child not only would be entertained by, but that could help them adapt to change. I then determined the ideal size and shapes for the blocks so that they would be safe to play with, and would all fit together. The convex and concave shapes were added on top of each side of each block later to help the pieces fit together and not easily collapse.
Process Work
The Cards
Colour Choice:
Pink: lighter hues comfort
Green: soft green invokes feelings of peacefulness
Blue: a de-stressing colour, non-threatening and peaceful
Size:
2-4 inch blocks safe for 23 month olds
Lightweight: not too cumbersome
Next Steps:
Determine optimal number of blocks in a set.
Do surface finish studies with kids with an ASD to determine optimal surface finish.
Determine how many alterations in design (ie. one colour, two colours etc.) are optimal for learning.
Explore structure alteration additions.
Determine best manufacturing method.
Consider “create your own” cards based on child’s own designs.