Christopher Lim Hao Teck (SoC/COM1), Goh Wei Qin (FASS/ARS1), Lee Heng Kit Andrew (FoE/CHE1), Lorraine Ong Xin Yi (FASS/NVG1), Sim Xin Wei (FASS/ARS1)
Academic Advisor: Sadaf Ansari | Student Fellow: Lee Juho
Autism is a lifelong developmental disability that affects how a person interacts with other people (NAS, 2016). Caregivers of autistic individuals experience financial burden and emotional or psychological distress (Shu, 2009). In this project, we investigate the feasibility of an online platform in ensuring the sustainability of caregivers. The platform aims to facilitate interaction and allow caregivers to educate themselves, by providing access to the latest information on autism, all these while maintaining anonymity. To obtain feedback on the feasibility of our proposed solution, caregivers are surveyed to find out about their challenges, mindsets, and their needs. One improvement was to alter the target audience as we lack relevant skills to effectively assist autistic individuals. We discovered that we are in a better position to meet the needs of autistic caregivers. It was reported that a centralised information repository would help guide parents to provide better care for their dependents (Foo, Yap & Sung, 2014). Hence an online centralised information repository would cater to this demand.
Keywords: Culture and Lifestyle Trends, Accessibility, Autism caregiving, Information portal