Computer Assistant for a Person with Autism
Senior Project: 1998-1999
Steve Bjorg, Aaron Hart, Patrick Link and Miranda Walton
TC's Community, a local non-profit organization funded by the Developmental
Disabilities Center (DDC) of Boulder, consists of family, house staff, and a
Board of Directors that collectively provide care and management for an
autistic woman named Teresa. The community is organized to assist Teresa with
living in her own home. The house staff contributes to taking care of the
house, guiding Teresa in daily routines, and participating with Teresa in
activities for both work and recreation.
Teresa does not communicate verbally. Interaction with Teresa is heavily
oriented towards visual depiction, often using pictures and diagrams. In
addition, Teresa is accustomed to making decisions based on a consistent set of
options. Consequently, the Community believed a computer system would be ideal
for establishing a consistent communication medium with Teresa, allowing her to
perform many daily activities more independently. This project was centered
around this idea and is intended to facilitate assistance for Teresa.
The principal feature of the system is a specialized user interface that
includes touch-screens, picture prompting, and verbal audio messages. Teresa
can guide herself through many daily routines with simple prompting through a
sequence of pictures and verbal instructions from the computer system, making
responses herself by pressing pictures on the touch-screen. The system also
provides the house staff and system administrator the flexibility of modifying
the activities and picture sequences, for example, introducing a new dinner
menu from which Teresa may select for meal preparation. The system was
developed in Visual Basic using an Access database.
 Administrator Interface
Staff Interface
User Interface
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