Analysis of Information: third draft.

ANALYSIS OF INFORMATION

After researching through the internet, books, magazines, videos and 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 (Community and Service). I will focus on kids with autism (to be specific, Aspergers), training and sensory dolls.

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, head banging and many more. They have trouble controlling their emotions and showing it 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 so that his/her surroundings can know what they really feel. Kids with Aspergers aren’t the best at controlling their emotions. Kids with autism have sensory problems—their ability to feel isn’t as good as people without autism.

Kids with autism or Aspergers in specific are just simply different than others. They need to have different kind of practices so that they can be more “normal”. But then again, what is normal? To kids with autism, they’re normal. To us, people without autism, we’re normal. So actually, the practices they go through isn’t to make them normal, but so that they can do more than others, do things they weren’t able to do before that.

Sensitivity is one of the indications that a kid has autism. They usually have sensitivity to light or a specific color. Like what’s written in Jodi Picoult’s book House Rules, the kid with Aspergers was sensitive to the color orange. And in Mark Haddon’s book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the kid was sensitive to the color yellow. Actually, not all of them have a special sensitivity, but those are the examples. They also have motor skills problem such as locomotion, ball skills, balance, manual dexterity, coordination and rhythm. It might sound like something that little kids lack of, but kids with autism are known when their growth is late than other kids.

Nowadays, there are toys that are called sensory toys. It is a type of toys that can help kids with special needs to calm themselves down and to focus more. It helps them to control their emotion as well. Those toys doesn’t only help them to control their emotion, it also help them to develop their senses. There are 2 different kinds of cases, one is hyperactivity, and the other one is hyposensitivity. Kids with autism that has hyperactivity’s senses actually works but it might not work really well. Meanwhile, hyposensitivity is the extreme of hyperactivity because their senses aren’t able to work at all. Since, hyposensitivity needs a lot of time to improve and way more extreme, I will focus on hyperactivity.

Referring back to the Areas of Interaction’s question: How do we live in relation with others? We live in relation with others by trying to blend in, to be the same with everyone, not to be weird. But for kids with autism, or Aspergers, they don’t know what’s different and what’s the same. So, what we can do to help them is by helping them. The simplest thing we can do is by not making fun of them. It is simple, but those simple things mean a lot to them.

ABOUT TRAINING KIDS WITH AUTISM

Autism kids are kids with special abilities. Nowadays they have different kinds of Yayasan and groups that help kids with autism to grow and get more attention. They have different kinds of tools as well to help them as well. As their surroundings, there are also different ways to help them.

Yayasan or organizations that help kids with autism also exists in Indonesia. Even though they’re only a small group of people, it is said that kids with autism grows. It helps them little by little. Even though it is not possible for kids with autism to be “cured” from autism, they can grow and continue living like other kids. Kids with autism took more time to develop than kids without autism. They’re considered late, that’s why they need different kinds of training so that they can catch up with the other kids. They need more attention.

Sensory toys are one of the best ways to help kids with autism grow. Even though it takes a long period of time, it affects the kid little by little. Sensory toys have different kinds of features in it such as sound, light, movement, vibration, texture and pressure. All of it can help kids with autism with a long process.

Referring back to the Areas of Interaction’s questions, we contribute to the community by helping them with what we have. For example, we have a talent in cooking; we can help them cook foods that could decrease their hyperactivity. We can also help others in many different ways, being a friend is one of them. We can talk to them and accompany them so that they don’t feel lonely. Those simple things actually does matter.

ABOUT CREATING DOLLS

I’ve found many different ways to make and examples of dolls. I have decided to make it with different kinds of fabrics so that the dolls can help the kids with autism to increase their censoring skills.

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. She also said that putting beans inside the doll could also make a simple textile have more textures in it. Sensory toys are toys that can help people train their senses. According to Kidscoper Toys, sensory toys are toys that usually offer feedbacks such as sound, light, movement, vibration, texture and pressure. For my product, I will focus on textures. It is also said that sensory toys can slowly decrease their hyperactivity.

After seeing different kind of dolls, I notice that they usually use attractive color textiles to get their attention. They also have unique and different kind of shapes, and most of it looks complex because they wanted to get more attention for their uniqueness. But, since the shape of my doll doesn’t really matter, I will keep it simple but also unique. I also won’t be using attractive colors because I’m afraid that would actually be too much for them and they would “explode”. So, after considering my target audience’s characteristics and needs, I will be using simple color textiles, but different colors. Because by seeing different kind of colors, it helps them to also practice their censoring skills—because they adapt to different kind of colors.

Another thing I noticed from seeing the samples of dolls is that they have different kinds of faces that can be funny and interesting. For my toy, I will also be focusing on the expressions, so I will be having many different kinds of simple expressions such as happy, sad, mad, etc and they can stick it in the doll to show what expression they’re feeling at that moment.

‘How can I contribute to the community?’ and ‘How can I help others?’ are the questions from the Areas of Interaction. I believe that there are many different ways we can contribute to the community. The best thing we can do is that use our talents to do something good to the community. For me, I believe that sewing is one of the things I like to do, and I would like to use it to help kids with autism. After trying to figure out how to use it best, I’m going to make a type of sensory toys. Same goes for how we can help others. It is up to us how we’re going to respond to the society. It is our choice to help them, it is also our choice to respond to what the community has offer. And I’ve chosen to respond positively, by helping them.

word count: 1368 :s

Behind Schedule D:

Lately, I've been quite busy, there has been a lot of homework lately, so I kind of forgot the existence of my Personal Project (--ish). Well, I didn't completely forget about it, I just put the other homework as my priority, so I didn't realize that I'M BEHIND MY PLAN D:

I promise to myself, and I WILL catch up. I will try to use my time more wisely and work on both my normal assignments AND personal project. I will start making the dolls this weekend (if possible).

--I will catch up!

design inspiration

Actually, I only have 1 design inspiration. This isn't mine and I done know how/where you can find it through the internet. So here it is! :)

trial! :D

So, last Sunday I was so bored at home doing nothing. And then I saw this book of how to make monster dolls. So, me and my mom start working on it, but because we don't have a sewing machine, we made the doll by hand. It was pretty hard and tiring because the size is small and there are small details. So, here it is! :) For my Personal Project, I would be making dolls something like this, but probably with softer colors and bigger size :)

Analysis of Information--second draft

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.

INTRODUCTION--FINAL DRAFT

Creating something new and unique is something I like to do; it is a part of who I am. Sometimes don’t you just wonder what you can with your abilities and with favorite things to do? So I’ve decided to do something that will benefit others.

People say that autism is a disability; some other people say that autism is weird and different. To them, autism is a beautiful grace. Even though there are some disabilities included in autism, but some say autism have more IQ than people with no autism. I think they are both kids with disabilities and special abilities. It’s interesting how they have special abilities, which put them as a brighter student than the rest of the students. They might not have the ability to do everything and may have a disability, but they are special.

For my personal project, I would like to make character dolls that will help kids with autism develop. I will be designing and creating the dolls and later I will give them to the kids with autism with hope that it will help them grow, develop and make good use of it. Kids with autism needs tools to make their censoring skills better. That is the reason why I’m going to make dolls that will develop their censoring skills. The Area of Interaction I will relate this to is Community and Service. One of the many reasons why is because I want to learn more about this community and help them to develop in a way that would benefit them at the most.

My plan is to first of all find a society or institution that helps autism kids. After that, I will search about the institution and ask whether they need help or not. Next, I will be interviewing a professional for advice on how to help the autism kids with toys, and I will also do some other research through other resources. After that, I will start designing the dolls (with characters) and at the same time I will be finding the perfect material for the dolls. Next, I will start creating the dolls based on the design with the texture and material. When I’m done creating the dolls, I will give those dolls to the community or group of people that helps autism kids to achieve my goal.

I’ll know that I have succeeded if the kids with autism will hold the toy for at least 3 minutes, to know whether they like it or not. If they hold the toy for at least 3 minutes, it means they like it. If they hold it less than 3 minutes, I assume they don’t like it, which means I failed.

updates!

So, yesterday, I met with my PP supervisor, Ibu Lisa. I was told to edit my PP introduction one last time, but because we're having so much homework right now, I'm probably going to do it this weekend. I will also need to edit my analysis of information because there is one part that I forgot to mention there.

I already got an idea for the dolls how its going to look like, but I haven't physically design it--but I already have an idea on my mind. Hope its going to work well! :)