Overview

The National Institute for Health Research–UK’s largest funder of health and care research–recently awarded one of two grants to David Ruttenberg to carry out Patient Public Involvement (PPI) research for the SensorAble project on Adaptive Wearable Appropriateness as an Autistic intervention. This award is made possible through the generous support of the University College London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre.

About the research

90% of autistic adults report that sensory issues cause significant barriers at school/work. Wearable technologies offer the possibility to monitor environments and adjust user-experiences. A PPI co-produced with individuals that incorporates their lived-experiences may well translate into a prototype aiming to squelch unwanted sensory-stimuli and deliver early-warning/alerts of distracting and anxiety-producing events.

“By targeting an often-neglected group, this project contrasts with other interventions that focus on ‘fixing’ socio-communicative difficulties by ‘teaching’ individuals to conform to their surroundings,” Ruttenberg reports. “Instead, my study aims to empower users with customized supports for their particular needs and may increase their comfort, productivity and autonomy.”

Find out more

You can learn more about that SensorAble project here at the project website.

For more information, you may also wish to contact David.

Updated: 14 March 2020