Date of Graduation
5-2022
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Interior Design
Degree Level
Undergraduate
Department
Interior Design
Advisor/Mentor
Webb, Jennifer
Committee Member
Lee, Jisun
Second Committee Member
Schaefer-Whitby, Peggy
Abstract
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a growing disorder across the world. ASD affects around 1 in every 68 children in the United States (Block, 2018). This disorder results in significant social, intellectual, and behavioral changes within a child, and create challenges for a child with ASD to learn and develop like children without ASD. No two cases of ASD are alike which is why it is called a spectrum disorder. This adds an extra challenge to designing spaces for children with ASD to inhabit and thrive. These children frequently suffer from sensory processing deficits in which they have a hard time processing different stimuli happening within an environment. In an ideal situation, a space would be designed to accommodate each unique symptom while also helping build a tolerance for other stimuli in the environment.
What are some of the main characteristics of children with ASD? What is the best way to define the severity of these characteristics? What types of interventions can take place to help manage these characteristics without completely controlling the environment? What is the best way to test the effectiveness of these interventions?
This project will identify some of the key characteristics that a child with ASD expresses. Environmental color, hues placed in the environment on architectural surfaces or through the addition of interior elements, will be discussed in the context of antecedent intervention, or interventions that are put in place before a behavior occurs to either reinforce it or discourage it. These interventions are both additive and subtractive in nature. The result of this project will be a resource brochure with different design categories that parents can use to find different environmental interventions that have to do with the corresponding categories.
Keywords
Interior Design; Special Education; Environmental Design; Classroom Design; Residential Design
Citation
Warden, B. (2022). Design for a Spectrum. Interior Design Undergraduate Honors Theses Retrieved from https://scholarworks.uark.edu/idesuht/2
