More than 600,000 people in the UK have autism, a condition associated with poor social and communication skills and restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour.  Children with autism are not easily included in mainstream youth activities provided by the community and their families. The range of challenges children with autism face varies amongst individuals, posing a challenge requiring the design of personalised interventions.

In this project we aim to investigate how several of these challenges can be addressed through a co-design process and the development of personalised proof-of-concept prototypes. Our main motivation is to empower families to become designers themselves in order to develop ideas and concepts that could potentially make a difference for their children.

In the Include Me project we will be working with families of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to co-design, develop and evaluate ‘phygital’ (physical and digital) proof-of-concept prototypes for social inclusion within the house and other social environments.

This project is supported by the LICA fund at Lancaster University.