CalmSpace: An Assistive Technology to Tackle Autistic Meltdowns

The Project

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported that approximately 1 in 44 children in the U.S. are diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). My device will help the parents and caregivers during the autistic meltdown. An autistic meltdown is immense, very emotional, enduring, and more difficult to manage than the average tantrum. For the parents and caregivers, it is not very uncommon to experience anxiety themselves during meltdown times, which may further worsen the autistic person's meltdown. Anxiety is the result of not knowing what to do next. Hence, the parents/caregivers need all the help they can get to tackle meltdown situations. My device can help formulate a calm-down plan based on individual needs and can trigger the next steps automatically during a meltdown. Often, an autistic person's meltdown involves screaming and shouting. Therefore, my device relies on the noise level, detected by an electret microphone, which can send a digital signal to the Raspberry Pi when the threshold is reached. The Raspberry Pi, in turn, can work with WeMo smart plugs to switch ON or OFF the pre-configured WeMo switches within the mobile application that will be available for the users. Every autistic person needs different strategies to calm down. Calm down strategies may include pleasant music, repetitive white noise, bubble lamps, dark room, green light, marquee lights, etc. My device can be configured to work with any of these devices.

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Team Comments

The idea started as an emotional reaction to seeing the autistic meltdown of my friend’s brother. During the meltdown, their parents were not even able to think rationally. This event inspired me to investigate further to find a potential solution for tackling the autistic meltdown.

Initially, I had some challenges when the sensory room is activated even for any fallen object. Hence, I updated the logic to trigger the sensory room only if there are five continuous instances of threshold crossing.

To further improve the device, I plan to support other smart plugs such as the amazon smart plug, add an emotional sensor with AI to detect meltdowns emotionally, provide an option to switch OFF devices instead of switching ON, and also provide a comprehensive tracker for tracking meltdowns.