Visual Interest of Children with Autism in Interior Elements in the Room

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can find it very difficult to focus on things that do not interest them or things with too much distraction. Distraction can be received by the senses, senses of sight, smell, hearing, and other senses. Of the various senses, the visual aspect is the most robust sense possessed by children with ASD. Therefore, this study aims to determine the visual interest (sense of sight) of children with autism in interior spaces, especially in therapy rooms. The method used is quantitative. The research location is in a hospital in Bandung. The research object is eight children with autism with the category of low function, difficulty to focus, and low imitation ability with an age range of 3-12 years old. Observations were made by watching video recordings from the ceiling of the therapy room and the front of the child (toward the child's eyes) during one therapy session when the child with autism was alone in the therapy room and when she/he was with the therapist in the therapy room. The significance test was carried out using a one-tail t-test and a single-factor ANOVA test. The results show that the most visually appealing interior elements for the eight children with autism are windows, clocks, doors, and poles. Besides, the average visual interest in windows, clocks, and doors increases when they were alone compared to when they were with a therapist. The conclusion is that every child has different visual interests, but there are similarities of interests with a therapist. During the therapy, children still find it challenging to focus on the material because they look at various directions of the room that the child finds attractive so that the therapy process does not run optimally. This finding means that the more objects/interior elements in the room, the greater the visual distraction they will create. Thus, interior design for children with autism should also be adjusted to their easily distracted behavior (from a visual perspective) to carry out effective and maximum therapeutic activities. Keywords: Visual interest, children with ASD, interior, space DOI: 10.7176/ADS/93-01 Publication date:May 31st 202