Autie: application for autistics' autonomy and security

Autie is an application that aims to assist autistics, mainly women, providing more autonomy and security for them.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a condition that impacts the way a person feels, thinks and interacts with the environment and people around them. It affects neurodevelopment and causes atípical behavior manifestations. The term Spectrum is used because it indicates something variable, once each autistic presents their own characteristics and individualities. However, there are three levels of support for autism from 1 (less support needed) to 3 (most support needed), which help doctors and psychologists to offer the right treatment for their patients. 

According to a study published in the journal Jama Pediatrics, one in thirty people is autistic and females represent 19% of them. Yet, although the belief that autism is more common in men, recent studies show autism is underdiagnosed in women, concluding that there are other factors which hamper diagnostics in this sex. One of these is masking, whereas girls tend to hide their atypical characteristics intentionally or unintentionally, frequently imitating others behavior and internalizing their anxiety. Consequently, their aspects are confused with the expected female comportment in most cultures, that standardizes shyness and introspection, unlike male behavior, that is expected to be more social. Thus, according to Judith Gould, from National Autistic Society, women could represent 40% of autistics.

Another trouble faced is their invisibility, mainly in adulthood, as society does not understand autistic conditions, constantly ignoring them. One of the answers in a questionnaire developed by the group was extremely meaningful to our project: "There is no inclusion. As I am at ASD level 1, they do not accept my autism, neither consider me normal enough to be typical". A factor that causes this is the disinformation about autistics rights, which are not well disseminated by the government nor by private institutions. Consequently, autistics do not know when they are not receiving the proper treatment as well as typical people do not know how to treat them properly.  

Furthermore, some autistics are hypersensitive, having an aversion to colors, light, movement, tastes, etc. They suffer from a crisis when they are in crowded places with lots of sensory information, and can also hurt themselves if they cannot control it. Also, as they have trouble with recognizing irony and double meaning, most of the times autistic women do not understand that some actions are not respectful, tending to enter abusive relationships.  

In addition, the lack of autonomy caused by the disability to organize their routine results in an extreme dependence on other people. Even simple tasks can be hard to make, such as eating properly and going to the bathroom. Besides, the high costs of treatment and services for autistics decrease their quality of life, once the majority of the population have no financial condition to afford this. As stated in the account: "Our trouble is financial because an efficient treatment for autistics is too expensive".  

Finally, there is a scarcity of organized communities that reach all autistics, which are extremely necessary for people to feel understood, mainly because they go through things most people do not.

Autie is an application which aims to provide autonomy and security to its users. Its functions are:  

1. Alarms to create and keep a routine, once it is crucial for autistics to follow it. It aims to organize basic activities such as drinking water. There is also an exclusive alarm for menstrual hygiene that is programmed to alert the time to substitute period products. 

2. SOS crisis to relieve the crisis autistics may go through. There are four preprogrammed options of calming videos which can be replaced by others that users may choose. Another option is security contacts, which are people who users can call or send a message to. To make everything work, the button SOS just need to be pushed. 

3. SOS violence to provide a faster aid, as users can record a video to store evidence and also initiate a call to police or to other security contacts.  

4. Autistics rights to expose Brazilian laws geared to autistics, so users will know and demand their rights.  

5. Visual schedules, a screen with drawn tutorials of the main simple activities needed in their routine, as it may be easier for autistics to understand images.

6. Community, with plenty of chats for autistics and people involved in this cause to exchange experiences and knowledge.

7. Illustrated characters to guide users through the app.

8. Tutorial, that is a video on YouTube explaining how to use Autie. Available in the link:

Tutorial

Autie was developed on Thunkable using the databases of Airtable, to store the application's files, and Firebase, to store users information. It can be customized and will use artificial intelligence to improve this and other functions, besides creating new ones. It can be downloaded in Android and IOS smartphones using the link:

The Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a disturb that affects the neurodevelopment, being responsible for atypical development and behavior manifestations, as well as exiguity in interactions, social relationships and daily communications. Carriers of ASD have characteristics and repetitive behaviors patterns, usually, dissimilar to the imposed social stereotypes.

ASD manifests in the first years of life and persists for the rest of adult life, although the early treatment can reduces significantly comorbidities caused by this medical condition. This neurodevelopmental disorder can result in differing characteristics with variable levels of severity, which make those characteristics very unique to each individual, hence the term "Spectrum", since it covers numerous possibilities of behavior and physical repercussions. 

Some of the main signs of autism are difficulty in social interaction and verbal and non-verbal communication, as well as stereotyped and repetitive actions, however, its consequences go far beyond that. From early childhood, autistics tend not to socialize with other children and do not understand social norms, in general. Thus, if left untreated, autism can become an even greater hindrance, since it directly interferes with development and learning, resulting in behavioral and social interaction problems in adulthood.

Regarding autism in females, since the beginning of studies on ASD in America and Europe, men have been the central targets for diagnostic research, since using women could be harmful if they become pregnant. Moreover, although there is a belief that autism is more common in men, researchers confirm the existence of external factors that can hinder the diagnosis in the opposite sex, doing the analysis of comparative data between men and women abstract. These, together with other factors, result in a reality of underdiagnosis in autistic women. According to Baron-Cohen, the ratio would be four males for every female, however, the fact that the female gender has been invisibilized during most analyses is overlooked. Therefore, according to Judith Gould of the National Autistic Society, the actual ratio may be 1.5 to 1.

Besides the general difficulties caused by this condition, it causes adversities related to cultural and prejudiced aspects of society. As an example, there is the lack of diagnosis of women with ASD, who tend to hide the characteristics of this condition to fit within the imposed standards. This "camouflage", also known as masking, usually manifests itself in the form of shyness, which is normalized when linked to the female gender. Thus, girls internalize, intentionally or not, their anxiety, becoming antisocial, while boys usually express it with irritability and aggression. Autistic women often imitate what they see in neurotypical women and force themselves to interact and maintain eye contact, for example, even if this is extremely uncomfortable for them. Therefore, their posture is confused with expected stereotypes of femininity, such as introspection, while men are expected to be more sociable.

Although Autie is aimed at autistic people, it was realized, after its prototyping, that it presents useful resources for other audiences as well. People with Tourette Syndrome (TS), whose tics can be exacerbated by stress and reduced during activities that require concentration, can benefit mainly from the tabs SOS Crisis and Rights, considering that the ST is also considered a disability by law, while for people with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), due to their difficulties with organization and forgetfulness in daily activities, the tab Alarms would be of fundamental importance.

Considering the high rate of violence against people with disabilities in the country, where every hour an act of violence is committed against people with disabilities, these people can benefit from the violence prevention and rights systems present in the application. 

As previously mentioned, we did a market analysis by searching for apps that involved the autism theme. Among the most common themes are children's games for cognitive development and speech, and information apps for parents of autistic children, while aspects such as safety and autonomy are hardly addressed. It is important to note that many software applications aimed at this audience have a high acquisition cost. 

There are applications aimed at people with ASD, but they predominantly focus on children and parents of autistic people. The invisibility of the adult audience is worrying, and as more mobile programs are considered, it gets worse. 

No software was found that considered the specific needs of autistic women or that targeted this audience. Moreover, all the women interviewed by the team stated that the Autie application, besides being very useful, would be the first one with this theme, concluding that there are not enough assistive technologies for women with ASD.

Considering the problems presented, Autie is an application that aims to provide more autonomy and safety to autistic youngsters and adults, especially women. It was built based on the opinion of psychologists and the autistic community, aiming to help its audience in their daily difficulties, in crises related to autism itself or the violence that can be a consequence of this condition. Thus, the MAIL team works to build a means of emancipation for these people, providing a tool that meets their needs and develops together with its target public.

Regarding the application's features, it contains illustrated characters, our mascots, who guide and orient users, being the cat the character "Mila" and the llama the character "Lima".

The alarm is the most requested function in the questionnaire, since most autistic people suffer from executive dysfunctions, together or not with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), which cause difficulties in performing daily tasks. Thus, alarms can remind users of their daily tasks and needs.

The SOS Crisis tab was created considering the crises that autistic people can experience in situations of excessive sensory stimuli, for example when they are in crowded places or with bright flashing lights, or in moments of emotional overload. All these features need to be edited before the crisis occurs, so when this happens, just click the SOS button to make it work, and then the user will be provided with ways to calm down. 

The SOS Violence screen was created thinking about the greater vulnerability of autistic women to get into abusive relationships, so this function provides faster assistance to situations of violence. Among the instructions offered by the mascots is the incentive to report such situations. This tab can be activated by waving the cell phone.

An essential part of our project, the Autistic People's Rights tab intends to expose the Brazilian laws specifically aimed at autistic people and people with disabilities. There is a brief interpretation of every law exposed just below the theme of that law.

On the Scripted Designs screen there is an illustrated step-by-step of daily activities such as hygiene habits, eating, changing clothes, and general organization, the use of which can optimize the time to perform and the efficiency of such tasks.

An emotional diary is being designed, where users will be able to describe how they feel at the moment, either in writing or by emojis, report on their day, and describe their crises. The program will return graphs showing the user's performance over a given period of time. This data can be used for self-awareness or analysis by a health professional to help with treatment. Furthermore, the combination of the collected data with general information about sensory processing problems and the sensors of the cellular devices will enable the creation of an artificial intelligence that prevents seizures. 

The team is made up of four members and each of them has qualities that contribute to the project, making it efficient and balanced.  Since the group works together and knows every step of the process, all team members are responsible for the research, development and commercialization of the application.  However, each one has something unique to offer our project, making it as special as we are:

 • Aluana will encourage the group to keep working even when things are going wrong, raising the team's spirits;

• Anna is the designer responsible for creating logos and videos, providing a unique and profitable user experience;

• Isadora will always find a solution to application problems, in addition to having a rather intense passion for doing research;

• Letícia is great in communication and essential for meetings, commercial and media partnerships.

 We are concerned with understanding the embraced cause. Therefore, when dealing with minorities, the scarcity of data is remarkable. Therefore, we strive to find the maximum amount of data provided on the internet, preferably by official bodies.  In order to collect data more effectively, it was decided to appeal directly to the public we serve, so a form was developed and made available to the target public of the project.  Also as a method for collecting information, meetings were held with autistics, psychologists, educational psychologists and family members of autistic people.

The team has a good theoretical and practical basis on the subject to which it refers. The experiences acquired in meetings, field and theoretical research provided unique and profitable moments for each member.  It is understood that, in order to embrace a cause, it is important to be part of it and understand the reality of each person who lives it.

Online form

It took a long process to understand the needs of our target audience: From the experiences of a student in the group, who has a friendship with an autistic teenager, the team learned about the problems she faces. However, this was only one reality, the opinion of one person. To get a broad understanding of ASD, its realities and needs, as well as to know the most common daily difficulties in the spectrum, an online questionnaire was made, using the Google Forms platform. The goal was also to learn about the application's acceptance among its target audience.

The form was divided into the categories "I am autistic", "I am and live with other autistic people" and "I live with autistic people", each with standard questions for general analysis of the audience (age, sex, gender and state where they live) and questions about the adversities they face because of autism, directly or indirectly. 

A total of 90 answers were obtained. 73.5% of them are from São Paulo, while the other contributors are distributed among the states of Santa Catarina, Goiás, Distrito Federal, Rio de Janeiro, Mato Grosso do Sul, Minas Gerais, Rio Grande do Sul, Pará, Bahia and Sergipe.

With the form it was possible to find out what was really necessary to have in the application. We did a questionnaire whose focus was to find out the main difficulties faced in the daily life of the Brazilian autistic population, their relatives and colleagues. Thus, these people had space to write down the problems they face due to the Autistic Spectrum Disorder and what exactly they would like the software to help them with.

Market analysis

Many ideas were suggested in the questionnaire, which would originate interesting functions, but it was necessary to think about their applicability and viability, in addition to considering the existing applications and the functionalities they had.

From the answers on the form, an investigation was conducted in the official application store for the Android operating system, the Google Play Store, using the words "woman", "female violence", "autism" and "alarm". The first programs that appeared and had the proposal most similar to that of the team were selected and analyzed.

After examining the applications present in the market, it was concluded that none of them helps autistic people in terms of safety and autonomy, since most of these tools are focused on alternative communication and games for various developments. Applications focused on women's safety also exist in abundance. 

One of the main factors observed was the lack of resources for adult autistics. Restricting it to autistic women, no product was found, indicating that the Autie app has no competition and would be the first free app in the official app stores focusing on this audience. 

Interviews

In addition to the questionnaire, interviews were conducted with autistic women and neuropsychological professionals. The intention was to go even deeper into the reality of these women, getting to know their needs and adversities and, at the same time, trying to deconstruct the capacitism we carried (since this is a characteristic present in the social structure).

The health professionals, in turn, consist of psychologists, psychiatrists, neuropsychologists, and psychopedagogues. Many of these are specialists in women with ASD. Due to the lack of Brazilian studies on autism in women, it was these professionals who presented the theme to the team in a technical way. 

There was a first phase of interviews, in which the professionals helped the team in the development of the application functions, pointing out resources that would actually be useful to solve the proposed problems and conceptual errors about autism. They also played an important role in the dissemination of the application.

The second phase of interviews, in which the prototype is presented to autistic professionals and women, and whose conclusion is foreseen for the end of February this year, has been obtaining important feedback. So far there has been great approval of the application by the interviewees and, consequently, its dissemination in the networks is growing.

Most products developed for autistics are focused on children, almost as if older adults do not exist. During the market analysis it was clear that there were few accessible mobile technologies to assist autistic adults, yet there are no products developed to aid autistic women, making this public invisible in society.

It is possible to analyze through the table above that our application does not have direct competitors. The team evaluated them one by one and realized that the applications are very restricted and most of them are paid, besides they do not have a set of diverse features as Autie. Thus, Autie is an innovative application that compiles a wide range of functions and seeks to meet all users' necessities. 

Nevertheless, during our study, we had the privilege to meet amazing professionals that gave us all the support and knowledge they have accumulated in years of hard work. For this reason, Autie was developed based on specialists' opinions and it is also abetted by most of these experts, who offered help to test and disseminate the application. Thus, our product pleases autistics as much as the community involved in this cause, being able to achieve its public with praise and perform successfully in the market.

Our project is related to the objectives of sustainable development in some points such as: health and well-being, since autism is a condition that affects the way a person feels, thinks and interacts with the environment and individuals around him; gender equality, since it is still believed that autistic men only exist, ignoring the needs of autistic women; reduction of inequalities, since this community is made invisible within Brazilian society.

One of our goals for the coming year is to put our app to the test, as it is the first free app aimed primarily at autistic women and an innovative app that packs a wide range of functions and aims to aid all users' needs. In order to reach the desired audience, we will publicize the launch on our social networks and also the specialists we spoke to for the creation of Autie offered to publicize and test the application. 

Moreover, we are going to make some improvements, changing our programming to Java Script, as it offers more possibilities of development. This will be necessary because Thunkable does not allow the application to run in the background, which is essential for alarms, and as the programming is complex, the platform starts crashing, taking a long time to reload the page.

Finally, some functions will be added, such as a new tab for Emotional Schedule, a tab to help with expressions and social relationships, and an artificial intelligence to predict crisis and try to avoid them, and also help with other functions. There are also tabs to be improved such as the crisis tab, that will be splitted into Shutdown, Meltdown and Overload, which are different moments of the crisis. 

That done, the MAIL team will continue to improve, expand and scale Autie as we receive feedback from our users.

Autie is a mobile application available for Android and IOS that constantly exchange information with its databases and will include an artificial intelligence to upgrade its functionalities.

Thunkable is a online and free platform for developing mobile applications using a block-based graphical programming language. It has direct deployment capabilities to Google Play Store and Apple App Store and allows constant previews and testing of the application on the mobile devices themselves. Autie’s programming and design were developed by this platform.

Firebase is a database normally used for mobile and web technologies. As it allows user authentication and live data, it was used to store user's information enabling the individual customization of the application. Furthermore, Airtable is also a database, but its interface is in table format and allows the storage of different types of file such as long texts and images. It was used to store application's files, such as its illustrations and PDF documents.

An artificial intelligence is being developed to improve some functions and to create others. Some of its goals are predicting and identifying crisis and violence situations, giving advice by deciding the best early actions to solve these issues based on the user's moves in the application, reporting monthly the main information about the use of the application by the user which may be important for psychological treatment and self-knowledge.

Our project has not been released yet because it is in the optimization and bug fixing phase, but it is possible to predict the amount of people affected by the application by analyzing population data. There are different estimates on the prevalence of autism, the one released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) considers only eight year old children and the one released by the UN was collected decades ago, which means it is outdated. Therefore, for greater certainty and reliability of estimates, we will use the data provided by a study released in the journal Jama Pediatrics (Reference 1), in 2022, whose estimate is that one person in every 30 adolescents and children between 3 and 17 years old is autistic, a total of 3.14% of the population. Applying this data to the Brazilian population, which according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) corresponds to approximately 215 million inhabitants, we get a total of 6,751,000 autistic people in the country. Considering also that, according to the IBGE (Reference 2), 84.4% of the Brazilian population has a cell phone for personal use, we can reach an approximate public of 5,697,844 people.

The main barrier in our project is the platform it was developed on, Thunkable. As it is a basic programming platform, there are a range of limitations that prevent our application from performing properly, such as preventing it from running in the background. However, for the application to be transferred to another platform, it is necessary for the team to obtain the necessary knowledge of Javascript, so that they can properly use the React Native library, a framework for developing mobile applications for Android or IOS.

Besides, as it is a subject made invisible within society, especially in Brazil, the lack of information and data regarding the subject of autism has hindered the theoretical basis of the project and, mainly, the dissemination of the subject. 

There were also difficulties with regard to graphic design, insertion of the application on paid platforms and dissemination through advertisements, since the group does not have the resources and financial support to cover such costs. Finally, as this is a project linked to the Institute, there are barriers that prevent us from carrying out field research in more depth, since the approval of the institution through the ethics committee is required. 

Currently, Autie has a single partner for the development of the application and the launch of the first version for testing:

 • Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), a partnership focused on scientific research, encouraging the sharing and expansion of knowledge.

O aplicativo Autie será totalmente gratuito para download nas plataformas Google Play e App Store. Nosso objetivo é alcançar todas as pessoas com Transtorno do Espectro do Autismo (TEA). Gastamos R$ 90 desenhando os mascotes do nosso aplicativo. No futuro, a equipa do MAIL espera receber patrocínio, financiamento ou subvenções através de Mostras Científicas para desenvolver o projeto nas fases iniciais e promover programas de parceria. Assim, ganharemos dinheiro por meio de parcerias e patrocinadores. Contanto que nosso aplicativo obtenha uma grande base de usuários, podemos obter receita de anúncios de instituições ou empresas locais. Atualmente, a equipe conquistou bolsa do CNPq para desenvolver o projeto. MAIL também está vendendo chaveiros e troféus com o logo da Autie para arrecadar dinheiro

Inicialmente, a empresa tem um investimento de R$ 90 (1 dólar = 5,20 reais, 20/01/2023) que foi utilizado para pagar o sorteio no app.