Helping students with autism integrate into the classroom
This is the final blog in our series about exciting new projects being developed to benefit Ontario’s education system with support from Ontario Centres of Excellence’s AdvancingEducation program.
Children with autism often face social, cultural and health challenges that can last their whole lives. Research suggests children with autism spectrum disorder are bullied more often than other children. They are excluded by peers, and mishandled and misunderstood by an education system with limited resources and incomplete or ineffective tools. This can have a serious and direct impact on their educational achievement, health and long-term well-being.
Recognizing the unique challenges faced by children with autism at school, Ryerson University’s Inclusive Design and Media Centre (IDMC), Tactile Audio Displays (TAD) Inc. and Webchair (website in Dutch) are building on a longstanding partnership to develop a solution that will improve how these children participate in learning and interact with classmates.
Supported by the AdvancingEducation program, the partners are combining two existing technologies — Webchair and Emoti-Chair — to create a multimedia, multi-sensory system called WebMoti. The Webchair is a telepresence system that lets children who are homebound due to physical illness, or who are dealing with psychological issues, attend school virtually and interact with peers as if they were in the classroom. Emoti-Chair — the result of a collaborative effort between researchers and students at the IDMC, London’s Vibrafusion Lab, and the founders of TAD and Webchair — is an audio-tactile display chair created to allow people who are deaf or hard of hearing to interact with (feel) music or sound through vibrations.
How will the new technology help students with autism?
Being in the classroom can be socially, mentally and physically overwhelming for children with autism. Because their sensory development is different than their peers’, they can have trouble processing the many simultaneous sights and sounds in their environment, making it extremely difficult to stay focused. WebMoti will give them more control over their learning environment so they can better participate and learn. The system allows users to attend classes remotely and choose whether they will observe only, or be seen by and interact with classmates. The camera zoom and audio control features help students prevent sensory overload and focus on lessons. And, by enabling sensory substitution, such as replacing sound with vibration or visualization and vice-versa, WebMoti will allow students to choose alternative means to obtain information.
The AdvancingEducation project will develop a WebMoti prototype and make the technology available to students with autism in participating Ontario schools that offer Exceptionality Intensive Support Programs, starting with the Toronto District School Board.
AdvancingEducation helps connect Ontario’s public education system with companies to test early-market interest and demonstrate innovative products and technologies in an education setting. This includes English and French K-12 schools as well as post-secondary institutions. Designed to bolster innovation in Ontario’s public education system through partnerships between schools and companies, the program invests in collaborative innovation procurement projects to demonstrate new technologies in a public sector setting as a means of building a strong case for adoption and system-wide scaling.