ACTIVITIES AND CONCLUSIONS

A methodology to study global indoor environmental comfort related to people with ASD was applied in this research. Questionnaires were designed so that they could be completed by parents and caregivers. One online survey, involving different international stakeholders from different assistance associations and one local survey, involving a specific extended care unit were developed. The study led to the following main conclusions:

• A relevant number of questionnaires was collected and the Cronbach’s alpha test showed a high reliability for all the cases considered. When dealing with the same subjects, parents and caregivers did not show particularly statistically significant differences, confirming the reliability of the survey with both groups of respondents.
• In all the cases considered, acoustic was the most stressful comfort domain, constituting a strong nuisance both in the extended care units and in households, in all the surveys considered. The other environmental issues, namely thermo-hygrometric, visual and IAQ were in general much less disturbing, with similar trends in all cases, with percentages of respondents decreasing as the sensitivity scale increases.
• The sensitivity to acoustics seemed to depend on the severity of autism, being higher when the autism severity was higher.
• Thermo-hygrometric, visual and IAQ sensitivities depended slightly on the environment where the answer was given, being slightly higher in households. This is related to these environments being less controlled and not specifically designed for autistic people. Thermo-hygrometric, visual and IAQ sensitivities increased slightly with age. A strong change of thermo-hygrometric perception was found after 30 years old. On the other hand, acoustic domain was less dependent on age, being of significant disturbance both in individuals under 18 and adults.
• The differences in perception detected in living and care environments were more evident with lower ages, severity of autism and diagnosed co-morbidities, as well as when well-designed care units were present.
• The number of hypo-sensitive or sporadic sensitive individuals was quite low in all cases, but increased slightly with age, severity of autism and number of co-morbidities.