Furry toy designed to help autistic children
The Autism News | English
A cuddly toy the size of a fat guinea pig designed to help modify the behaviour of children with autism has sparked international interest and backing from Autism New Zealand.
Auti, conceived by Victoria University designer Helen Andreae, was promoted at yesterday’s Wellington business Start-up Weekend by a seven-strong team of university colleagues.
They came together to help pitch the product and hopefully set it on the road to a world market.
The furry mechanical toy moves and wiggles when patted and spoken to quietly, but shuts down when a child screams or handles it roughly.
The idea is to gently encourage autistic children to develop better social skills.
It aims to get them to understand how their behaviour can affect others.
Ms Andreae said she wanted to design something that had meaning and that mattered.
“I love toys that come to life and I’m a really strong believer in play being the way you learn.”
The concept came to her after discussions with people about autism – a behavioural condition that families and teachers often struggle to manage.
Autistic children often have difficulty interacting socially and playing with others.
“It is such a difficult thing to deal with and if you can help in any way it becomes a rewarding area to design around.
“It’s also fun to create little objects that come to life and everyone enjoys them – this is a frivolous object [but] with a real meaning behind it.”
Ms Andreae said the next step in developing Auti was to create a more robust prototype – the first model was a bit delicate and liable to break if thrown around by the user.
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Comments
Melanie Sandlin says: I would love to have one. We need help with my son going to school. He is in first grade an all of a sudden hates school. There may be other issuses. We need help.
