Empowering Independent Living for People with Autism: Designing Supportive, Low-Cost, Interactive E-Health Environments

摘要

An investigation of the Caregiver Autism Residential E-hcalth (CARE) system, a low-cost, end-user deployable smart home technology, has been evaluated for its potential as an empowering assistive technology for adults living with autism. It allows adults living with autism and their caregiv-ers to create personalized smart home interventions that provide motivational support for activities of daily living, social relationships, and safer behaviors. This is achieved through the use of a ubiquitous computing system composed of off-the-shelf consumer electronic technologies. The Environmental Rating Scale (ERS). designed to assess residential interventions for people living with autism, guided the development and evaluation of CARE/ERS heuristics and interaction scenarios. The contributions of this investigation, advanced through an iterative design process involving expert reviewers, caregivcrs. and end-users in a patient centered approach for the design of actualizing c-health interventions, can be readily applied to a broad range of residential circumstances that improve quality of life.