To begin this second wave of research, I wanted to better understand what the autism spectrum actually means and why two people with the same diagnosis can require very different forms of support. This is particularly important to my emerging design problem around shared airport accessibility, because my current thinking is based on the idea that one shared solution may be expected to support people with very different levels and types of need.
I read Autism Spectrum Disorder by Lord et al. (2020), a peer-reviewed overview published in Nature Reviews Disease Primers. The paper provides a broad explanation of autism, covering diagnosis, epidemiology, biological research, intervention, support and quality of life. It describes autism as involving differences across social communication, repetitive or restricted behaviours and sensory behaviours, while also highlighting the considerable heterogeneity within the population.
The most useful aspect of the paper for my project was its reinforcement that autism is not one uniform presentation. People grouped under the same diagnostic spectrum can have substantially different characteristics, abilities and support requirements. The paper also emphasises the importance of understanding the longer-term needs of people with autism and considers independence and quality of life as important outcomes, rather than focusing solely on diagnostic characteristics.
This supports the broader reasoning behind my emerging statement, “One solution. Different levels of need.” A diagnosis of autism does not tell a designer exactly what an individual person will need from an environment. This makes it difficult to assume that one predetermined form of accessibility will work equally well for everyone.
Although the paper gave me useful background, I did not find it particularly useful for answering the specific question I am now asking. It is an extremely broad overview of autism and spends considerable time discussing diagnosis, genetics, development and intervention. It does not go deeply enough into how sensory experiences differ between individual adults, what different people find regulating or overwhelming, or how these needs might change depending on the environment.
This is actually useful in helping me narrow the next stage of research. I now understand that I do not need another general explanation of the autism spectrum. I need research that specifically compares the sensory experiences, preferences and coping strategies of adults with autism.
Lord, C., Brugha, T. S., Charman, T. et al. (2020). Autism spectrum disorder. Nature Reviews Disease Primers, 6, 5.