Indoor acoustic comfort for ASD people: from independent living to educational environments

Abstract

Autistic people, their families or caregivers need design processes capable of overcoming the difficulties of everyday life. In 2020, the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention reported that approximately 1 out of 54 children in the U.S. is diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder. Buildings are designed to provide a suitable living and learning environment for humans. Indoor comfort is necessary in different types of buildings, such as living, learning, working and healing environments. Good environmental quality is important as it affects health, comfort and productivity, significantly impacting on psychological and physiological aspects. The traditional reference could not be suitable in environments dedicated to individuals with special needs, since well-being strongly depends on individual differences in perception. It has been demonstrated that impaired individuals offer diverse responses to indoor environmental stimuli, in comparison with traditional users. Knowing this difference world would permit the realization of more inclusive spaces. Thanks to the first results obtained, a comprehensive representative description of the peculiarities affecting these individuals' acoustic sensitivity has been obtained. Further developments have been focused on similar acoustic aspects on collective spaces, such as schools, defining which aspects most stress autistic people, as regards building and room acoustics issues.