Personalized Spatial Support for People with Autism Spectrum Disorder

This paper presents a novel personalized service to support people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in their daily movements within urban environments. It aims at helping them in managing anxiety and stress originated by routine breakdowns and unfamiliar situations, improving their autonomy. In particular, we provide an interactive map that is i) personalized, i.e., able to recommend "Safe" Point-of-Interests (SPOIs) according to users' preferences for and aversions to places' sensory features; ii) crowdsourced, i.e., populated with comments and reviews by people with ASD and their caregivers; iii) assistive, i.e., able to support everyday movements (home-work, home-relatives, etc.) by presenting "safe" paths to reach desired places. In this paper we will focus on the first aspect of the map, i.e. SPOIs recommendations. The presented approach is part of a wider project, PIUMA, Personalized Interactive Urban Maps for Autism, which has the aim to develop novel digital solutions for helping people with cognitive problems in their everyday movements.