ANALYSIS OF INFORMATION
After researching through the internet, books and also interviews, I’ve decided that I’m going to focus on helping kids with autism but at the same time also focus on my AOI, which is Community and Service. Even though the process of creation (Human Ingenuity) is also a factor of it, 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 dolls with different kind of 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 beans so that the dolls can be heavier—and also, to practice their censoring skills.
Sensory toys are toys that can help people training their senses. According to Kidscoper 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 slowly decrease their hyperactivity.
I’ve found many different ways to make and examples of dolls. I have decided to make it with different kind of fabrics so that the dolls can help the ids with autism increase their censoring skills. Another thing I would like to do is vary the inside of the dolls (such as: beans).
After seeing samples of dolls, I have decided to use a simple color textile as the background and add different kind of patterns on top to make it vary even more. But since this is for kids with autism—Aspergers to be specific, I won’t be using patterns that make people feel dizzy (such as: black-and-white stripes).
According to Toy Attwood, kids with AD (Aspergers Disorder)—most of the time need a chart to show what they’re feeling because they cant show it in a proper way. After reflecting it back to my topic, I’ve decided to make the dolls with different facial expression, 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 can know what he/she’s really feeling.
ABOUT KIDS WITH ASPERGERS
Kids with autism—in general have problem communicating with other people. They also have weird and unique behaviors such as: avoiding eye contact, rocking their body, head banging and many more. Most people that have autism aren’t able to control their emotions and show their emotions in a proper way. According to Tony Attwood, giving them emotion chart will help a lot. So, when they’re angry (for example), they can point at the picture to tell his/her surroundings what they really feel instead of showing it in the wrong way (such as: hitting him/herself). Kids with Aspergers, aren’t able to control their emotions, and they don’t know how to show their emotion when something happens. Like what Tony Attwood, said in his book, when something bad happens, a kid with Aspergers would ask his parents what kind of face he should be making so that he won’t make the wrong facial expression and show disrespect. For people that don’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 in their community.
According to the Television show Parenthood, a kid with Aspergers name Max was going to explode because his routing was changed—if something he wishes to happen didn’t happen. 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.
Susan Ashley, in her book called The Asperger’s Answerbook said that Aspergers is one of the most seen disorders in life. It is most often seen in kids and usually have sensitivity to something specific (such as: light). Susan Ashley also said that 50-90% of children with Aspergers have motor skills problems. Locomotion, ball skills, balance, manual dexterity, coordination and rhythm are the motor skills problems that usually appear in AD (Aspergers 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.
Susan Ashley also said that deep breathing, muscle relaxation, visualization, thought stopping, thought replacement, thought disputing, count down, distraction, journaling, talking and physical activities could also help kids with AD to calm themselves down. I’m planning to make dolls that would help kids with AD to calm them down.
CONCLUDING THE ANALYSIS OF INFORMATION
So, after doing my researches, I’ve decided to make dolls that will help kids with Aspergers develop their censoring abilities. Even though there are many different types of problems, I’ve decided to focus on censoring abilities because that is what interests me most.
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, I can go back to the information I’ve 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. There are a lot of ways we can contribute to our community. Helping kids with AD by helping them to calm down is a contribution. For this project, I would be making dolls (because that is what I love to do) and connecting it with kids with AD. We can also help others by simply not making fun of them, because being teased isn’t a very nice feeling. There are many more ways to help kids with AD, and I would be making dolls that would help them calm down and also help develop their censoring skills.
