I now feel as though I have a better understanding of my intended audience, especially after reading one of the books given to me by Professor Eileen Crehan. This has caused me to reflect on some of the more dated articles and projects that I had come across and revealed some issues concerning the lack of consideration and understanding, on a more basic level, of the autistic community. Fortunately, it does seem as though the approach of more recent studies have adjusted and improved and it is clear that I need to put more effort into focusing on only the more recent studies from here on out.

With the project now feeling more focused, I decided to dive into laying out the design of our real game VR experience. I have decided that combining Social Stories with a “choose your own adventure” experience design could work quite well. I also began laying out some of the necessary customization options that would be needed.

After reading more into Social Stories, I am realizing that while tools designed for the autistic community can never be generalized, that a Social Story itself can effectively categorize certain scenarios and relate to them more generally, such as referring to busy places in general instead of referring to a very specific busy place. For this reason, I put some time into defining how a visit to the airport could be categorized. It is a busy place that is not visited routinely, that involves lines, security, tickets, waiting/rushing, finding seats, and has the potential for unexpected interactions or scenarios.

My questions are now whether or not our project should focus on one specific place, or if the experience could give options on various places that fall within this category, such as train stations, museums, landmarks, etc. If the project were to include all of these options, it would be quite expansive and outside of the scope of what could be accomplished for DREAM, however.