I finally feel like the project has clicked into place.
My final direction will be to develop a portable airport-rehearsal experience for autistic adults, allowing difficult or unfamiliar parts of international air travel to be explored and practised within a controlled environment before travelling.
Rather than requiring someone to visit an airport for a familiarisation day, the experience could potentially travel into the community.
The purpose would not be to recreate every stressful part of an airport perfectly. Instead, it would allow someone to become familiar with processes, decisions and situations before encountering them during a real journey.
The phrase “The Travelling Workshop” also feels appropriate because the experience would physically travel into communities while helping participants rehearse the experience of travelling itself.
The exact scenarios should come from my research rather than being chosen arbitrarily, but they could potentially include:
Planning → Check-in → Security → Waiting → Gate changes → Boarding → Cabin/luggage → Arrival and baggage reclaim
For example, somebody might practise:
Some scenarios could also introduce unexpected changes, because my research has repeatedly highlighted the difference between understanding the expected journey and coping when that journey changes.