ANALYSIS OF INFORMATION *first draft*

ANALYSIS OF INFORMATION

For my research, my focus was on the topic itself, which is helping kids with autism but at the same time also connect it to my AOI, which is Community and Service. Even though the process of creation (human ingenuity) is also needed, but I’ve chose to focus more on how to help kids with autism (to be specific, Aspergers).

ABOUT CREATING DOLLS

According to Athalia Soenaryo, a counselor, it is best to make the dolls with different textures so that kids with autism could practice their censoring skills and at the same time have something to hold on to. Another idea is to put some kind of beans so that the dolls can be heavier—for the same reason, which is to practice their censoring skills.

Sensory toys are toys that will help people training their senses. According to Kidscope Toys, sensory toys are toys that usually offer feedback such as sound, light, movement, vibration, texture and pressure. For my product later on, I will include texture as the main feedback. It is also said that sensory toys can help kids with autism to calm them down and it will slowly decrease their hyperactivity.

I’ve found many different ways to make the dolls itself and also examples of the dolls. I have decided to make it with different fabrics so that the dolls can help the kids with autism increasing their censoring skills. And as what Athalia Soenaryo said, putting beans inside the dolls for the same reason.

After seeing examples of dolls, I have decided to use a simple color textile as the background and probably add different kind of patterns on top to make it more variative. But since this if for kids with autism—Aspergers to be specific, I won’t be using patterns that make people feel dizzy. Such as: too many squares or black-and-white stripes.

According to Tony Attwood, kids with AD—most of the time, need a chart to show what they’re feeling because they can’t show it in a proper way. After reflecting it back to my topic, I’ve decided to make the dolls with different emotions so that when they’re feeling sad (for example), they can just simply take out their “sad doll” and show it to his/her surroundings so they know that he/she is sad.

ABOUT KIDS WITH ASPERGERS

Kids with autism—in general have problem communicating with other people. They also have weird unique behaviors such as: avoiding eye contact, rock themselves, bangs head and many others. Most people that have autism can’t really control their emotions and show their emotions in a proper way, so, according to Tony Attwood, it’s best to give them a chart of pictures of emotions. So, when they’re angry (for example), they can point at the picture to tell his/her family/friends what he/she is feeling, instead of showing it in a wrong way (such as: hitting him/herself). Kids with Aspergers, most of the time, can’t control their emotion, or doesn’t know how to show their emotion if something happens. Like what Tony Attwood said in his book, when something bad happens, he will ask his parents what kind of face he should make so that he didn’t make a wrong one and show disrespect. For people that doesn’t have autism, it’s odd to ask people how we’re supposed to feel, but for them, it’s very hard to decide what to do and how to do things so that they can be accepted by their community.

According to the Television series Parenthood, they have a kid with Aspergers name Max. In that series, Max was shown that he’s going to explode if his routine is changed—if something he wishes to happen didn’t happen. Like for example, at 7 p.m. he has to watch Spongebob, or he’ll be mad and start to hit himself. And if his father already made a promise, it has to happen, or else, he’ll have another mental break-down.

Aspergers is a type of autism, like what Susan Ashley said in her book The Asperger’s Answerbook that aspergers is one of the most seen disorder in life. It is most often seen in kids and they usually have a certain sensitivity (such as: light). Susan Ashley also said that 50-90% of children with Asperger’s have motor skills problems. Locomotion, ball skills, balance, manual dexterity, coordination and rhythm are the motor skills problems that usually appear in AD (Asperger’s Disorder). People with AD usually talks really loud, overly precise pronunciation, have an unusual rhythm while talking, lack of inflection, monotonous sound, difficulty coordinating breathing while talking.

In Susan Ashley’s book The Asperger’s Answerbook, she also said that deep breathing, muscle relaxation, visualization, thought stopping, thought replacement, thought disputing, count down, distraction, journaling, talking and physical activity could also help kids with AD to calm themselves down. After making the dolls, I was planning to interact with them, and as what the book said, if they have some emotional problem going on, I could use those activities to help them as much as possible.

RELATION WITH AOI [Community and Service]

From my research that I’ve got, I can connect the information that I’ve got with Community and Service by asking the guiding questions. “How do we live in relation to each other?” “How can I contribute to the community?” “How can I help others?” By seeing those questions, we can go back to the information we got. We live in relation with others by trying to help, even though most of us probably only look at them and do nothing—some people actually make fun of them. It is best to help them; the simplest thing we can do is by not making fun of them. If we’re able to do more, its better—like what I’m planning to do, which is making toys that will help them practicing their censoring skills.

As what I’ve said before, there are a lot of ways to contribute to our community. Helping kids with AD by making them calm themselves down itself is already a contribution. But for this project, I will be making dolls (because that is what I love to do) and connecting it with kids with AD. That will be the part where I make the dolls and observing them—if possible.

“How can I help others?” is a very wide question, because by not making fun of them, we’re already helping them. We can help kids with AD in many different ways, but for this case, I’m going to make dolls that will help them calm themselves down and also helping their censoring skills.