Design of Soft Tangible User Interface with Haptic Feedback to help Children with Autism

Developing interactive products and apps to help relaxation in children suffering from High function Autism. This also in turn helps them improve their communication and social skills. This product would also help people who suffer from Asperger syndrome and other such disabilities that require relaxation and helps promoting communication.

Children with Autism suffer from severe communication deficits especially with social interaction and emotional control. One of the main reasons is that children with autism are very sensitive to external sensory information: light, touch, sound, etc. So it is important for them to always have some means of relaxation. The soft circuit or eTextile techniques provide great potentials for people with difficulties to explore touch-based interaction. To aid in day-to-day life and to develop necessary skills, some are given aided augmentative and alternative communication technologies (AAC). The relative popularity of these technologies has led to a proliferation of competing software. At the time of this publication, the authors observed over 250 AAC offerings within the Apple iTunes App Store©, alone, with a cost range of free to $250. While these technologies have met with substantial acceptance from worried families, there appears to be a dearth of evidence to specify the overall effectiveness of these technologies. So, it is important that there is some technology that helps Children with Autism relax so that they can improve their social skills. This study will focus on exploring this area by investigating the following questions: 1. How do children with High Functioning Autism (HFA) respond to interactive soft pillows with Haptic feedback in high-stress situations? a. Do the pillows relax them when they are tensed and how? b. Does only the feedback matter or does the material and the characteristic of the pillow matter too and how? c. Does the interactivity (touch sensor) of the pillow help? d. Which vibration pattern do the children prefer and why?