People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) become more widely recognized as part of our population every year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, about 1 in 59 children in the United States is on the autism spectrum (CDC 2018). In 2011 and 2012 more than 455,000 U.S. students received special education under the disability category of autism (DOE 2013). Although support for these students is increasing in schools nationwide, students with ASD are still currently underserved in community settings outside of the classroom, participating less frequently in social activities and experiencing limited variety in nonschool related activities (Little et al. 2014).

Informal learning centers such as museums have made creative strides to become more inclusive, but people with ASD still experience barriers in such settings (Lussenhop et al. 2016). One common barrier is that youth with ASD are often prevented from participating in field trips alongside their fellow schoolmates during regular venue operating hours, due to perceived difficulty with accommodating these children’s needs in community settings. Students with ASD deserve the opportunity to visit and learn from informal science educational institutions and to be included in their local community, not separated from it (Hall 2010).

As part of its mission to encourage young people of all backgrounds to explore and develop their interests in science and technology, in 2013 the Museum of Science, Boston (MOS), established the Buddies Exploring Science Together (BEST) Program, in collaboration with the occupational therapy program faculty and graduate students at Boston University’s Sargent College (BU OT), as well as Boston Public Schools (BPS). The BEST Program supports students with ASD so that they can engage in field trips to the MOS during regular operating hours over the course of multiple months. The program aims to increase student interest in science and provide opportunities for students with ASD to socially participate in a community setting. This novel approach has resulted in science learning opportunities and positive social outcomes for these students, as demonstrated by program evaluations conducted by BU OT graduate students and MOS research and evaluation staff. Additionally, this is a highly replicable partnership program for other communities to modify and implement.

How the BEST program works

The BEST Program is structured to meet the needs of students with ASD and support these students in achieving the following four goals:

1. Engage in science learning opportunities, which connect to everyday life
2. Be with and/or socially communicate with others in a naturally occurring community setting
3. Be interested in and excited about science
4. Feel included in a community setting

The BEST Program takes place at the MOS from January through April of each school year. The program consists of six field trips to the museum and multiple visits to the classroom, including two initial observational visits from BU OT, a previsit by MOS educators and BU OT a week before the first field trip, a midvisit by MOS educators, and finally, a postprogram visit by BU OT to reflect on the experience. The midvisit is to provide continuity during the BU spring break in March.

The BPS classrooms involved are ASD Strand classrooms, which means all of the students in the classroom are students with ASD. In 2019 two BPS schools participated in the BEST Program: Orchard Gardens K–8 School, which brought 10 students from one middle school classroom (grades 5–8), and Jackson/Mann K–8 School, which brought 16 students from two middle school classrooms (grades 5–8). Students from Orchard Gardens visited on Wednesdays and students from Jackson/Mann visited on Thursdays for the duration of the program. A teacher and three to five paraprofessionals/one-on-one assistants visited along with students from each class. In addition, two BU OT students worked with each class, totaling six BU OT students, with two participating on Wednesdays and four on Thursdays. Finally, three MOS educators rounded out the team for each program day. The ratio of adults to students was approximately 1:1.5.

The participating BPS schools’ special education faculties choose topics to support their science curriculum needs and—in collaboration with the BU OT students—MOS educators then create specific weekly themed program modules based on these science topics. For example, BPS students who learn about the solar system in their classroom can then apply and further their knowledge by participating in a planetarium show at the MOS. Each year prior to the start of the program, BEST Program adult participants—MOS educators, BU OT professors and students, and BPS special education faculty—meet to identify science topics and plan learning activities for the year, based on the requests of the BPS teachers. The BPS teachers and special education faculty members place a great deal of value on the program, as described by one special education teacher who participated in 2015:

“I’ve been teaching for nine years and this is the single most important thing that has happened in my career in teaching as far as having integration of community outing, learning about curriculum, and socializing skills.”

Each week of the BEST Program, the BU OT students engage the students with ASD in an individualized goal-setting process and read customized social stories at their schools prior to getting on the bus to travel to the museum. Social stories are designed to prepare students for an upcoming experience by reviewing what to expect or anticipate and identifying strategies for managing behavior during novel social situations (Kokina and Kern 2010). An example of the first four pages of a social story can be found below.

When the BPS students arrive at the MOS, the BU OT students and MOS educators colead a welcome session and the BU OT students follow up with a warm-up activity—typically, a brief social activity related to the science theme of the day. A warm-up activity for an animal-themed day, for example, could include the BPS BEST Program students each naming their favorite animal, either vocally or via a communication tool such as a tablet, and then demonstrating an action that represents that animal. For each animal named, the whole group would then copy the action the student demonstrates while a BU OT student reiterates, “(Student name)’s favorite animal is a dolphin!”

Every MOS visit includes museum presentations, hands-on and socially interactive activities, or exhibit exploration—all collaboratively designed to promote social interaction and science learning. Experiences have included planting seeds and observing their growth, flower dissection and pollination, participation in an interactive Super-Cold Science presentation, a visit to a planetarium show, weekly weather observations with meteorological tools, participation in a Theater of Electricity presentation, and a visit to the MOS Live Animal Care Center.

The program also uses tools to support student learning and communication, such as electronic tablets for visual aids; customized, sequenced instructions for experiments; word banks with images for observations, created with the image-software BoardMaker; and visual schedules of the field trip activities that students can follow along with and modify as the visit progresses.

This program has historically been funded via a variety of grants and currently receives most of its funding from a generous grant from the Liberty Mutual Foundation. Everything is fully funded for the visiting students, including admission, bus travel, lunch, and any add-on venues, such as tickets for the Charles Hayden Planetarium or the Butterfly Garden. This grant also supports program material purchases and some MOS staff time.

The BEST Program’s philosophy

The overarching philosophy of the BEST Program is to create an inclusive environment within the typical daily atmosphere of the MOS. Supporting students with ASD as they socially interact in a naturally occurring community setting has been shown to be desired by school personnel and students’ families, and is therefore a major goal of the BEST Program (Lussenhop et al. 2016). Rather than host students with ASD during a separate time or at a separate location from other MOS visitors, the BEST Program scaffolds students’ visits to support their participation in museum activities along with the general museum field trip population. This approach to inclusion is an alternative to the often-used model of offering early access or after-hours experiences.

According to the Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education’s Access Inquiry Group, the inclusion of people with disabilities means that their surroundings enable them to physically interact with the space, cognitively engage with the materials, and socially interact with one another (Reich et al. 2010). Science centers and museums provide ideal environments to foster social engagement for a wide range of audiences because of the interactive nature of their exhibits and the field’s push toward universal design (Reich et al. 2010). In addition, there is emerging evidence that individuals impacted by ASD are more likely than others to have an aptitude for analyzing or constructing rule-based systems to explain the world around them. These abilities are particularly relevant for STEM-related (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields (Wei et al. 2013). Thus, a science center/museum provides a highly interesting and motivating context for students with ASD to socialize and succeed in a community setting, while reinforcing their interests and aptitude for understanding science.

At the MOS, BEST Program students explore the exhibit halls, participate in hands-on activities, and attend live presentations alongside the general museum visitor population (see video below). As outlined in the previous section of this article, the BEST Program includes specifically designed elements to support students in exploring scientific phenomena and interacting socially within the context of a typical field trip at the museum. It is these elements that translate the program’s philosophy into measurable success. This distinctive and innovative methodology places the program in a prime position to change and advance museum practices nationwide to be more inclusive.

The collaboration

To achieve this goal of inclusion in a museum setting, the BEST Program relies on the MOS’s community partnerships with BPS K–12 education professionals and the BU OT graduate program. The connections between social and science learning for students with ASD are expertly brought together by this full team of professionals.

Occupational therapy practitioners focus on supporting “engagement in meaningful occupations.” They analyze the demands of an activity, a person’s abilities, and the context or environment in which the occupation or activity takes place, and then intervene to support participation. The term “occupation” in the profession’s name refers to all the activities that occupy people’s time, enable them to construct an identity, participate as fully as possible in society, and provide meaning to their lives (Cohn, Schell and Crepeau 2010). As such, occupational therapy practitioners have a unique perspective and valuable skills particularly well-suited to collaborating with museum and K–12 professionals to create experiences that promote inclusion and belonging for students.

The BU OT graduate students observe students with ASD in their classroom settings to understand the BPS students’ learning styles and interests, and analyze possible MOS experiences and exhibits to include in the BEST Program. The BU OT graduate students then make recommendations to the MOS educators regarding strategies for structuring the field trip learning experiences to facilitate social interaction and science learning. BPS teachers provide valuable insights as to how MOS educators and BU OT graduate students can best engage the students with ASD, both individually and together as a class. BPS teachers also provide integral structural components and curriculum connections to science learning. MOS educators provide expertise on the museum itself, such as how best to use its spaces and what kinds of presentations and activities are available; they also lead science activities and coordinate program logistics and funding. Collaboration between all partners—the science center, the school system, and the occupational therapy program—is essential for the BEST Program to run successfully.

Program evaluation

Each year, evaluation of the BEST Program has shown that the program promotes social participation and engagement in science learning activities for students. Program evaluation was conducted collaboratively by BU OT graduate students and MOS research and evaluation staff, and has used several different data collection methods, including:

• weekly naturalistic and systematic observations of behaviors of BPS students (in 2015 this was 14 students; in 2018 this was 20 students);
• weekly self-reflections of students with ASD regarding their social and science goals, sense of belonging at the MOS, and interest in MOS activities;
• group debrief sessions among professionals; and
• pre- and post-teacher surveys about students’ behaviors in museum and classroom settings, which were created by adapting standardized surveys from the literature.

The naturalistic observations were a part of the evaluation of the 2015 and 2018 BEST Program. In these observations, students’ engagement in program activities were rated on a scale that ranged from “disengaged” to “neutral” to “engaged,” according to defined criteria. To define behaviors that would indicate engagement in the science museum environment, evaluators drew on data from the 2014 BEST Program evaluation, as well as other research conducted collaboratively by MOS staff and BU OT faculty about how family groups with a child with ASD engage in the museum (Lussenhop et al. 2016). Evaluators took care to note and honor the multiplicity of options for engagement, as forms of engagement are variable and each student has a unique communicative style. Examples of ways in which MOS evaluators could observe whether students were engaged included:

• students completing the steps of the activity;
• observing experiments, animals, or actions of others;
• responding to educator questions; or
• focusing on and using an exhibit component.

Evaluators also noted when students had positive reactions to the activities or made some kind of connection between museum activities and familiar situations, objects, or experiences.

This systematic method for observing student engagement demonstrated that during the 2015 BEST Program, all 14 observed students engaged in science learning activities, almost all (13 of 14) students had positive reactions to these activities, and half made connections between science and their everyday lives. Two students participated in the program but were not observed, as their parents or guardians opted not to consent to their participation in the evaluation. In the 2018 program these findings persisted: All 20 observed students engaged in science learning activities, almost all (17 of 20) displayed positive reactions to the activities, and eight out of 20 students were observed making connections to their everyday lives. In 2018 six students participated in the program but were not observed, as their parents or guardians opted not to consent to their participation in the evaluation.

Examples of positive engagement can illustrate the program’s success for a range of students. For example, in 2015 one student in the program used an electronic tablet to communicate and rarely contributed to group discussions. However, during the sixth and final MOS visit, during a Super-Cold Science presentation, the MOS educator leading the program asked students to make a prediction about a balloon she was using in the show. The student excitedly raised her hand and used her tablet to make a prediction that the balloon would be wet. The student’s teacher shared in the 2015 staff debriefing session that the week after the last MOS visit, the student used her tablet to say, “Bus. Bus. Dinosaur. Butterfly.” She then pointed to her coat because she was ready to go to the museum again. Her teacher said, “For her to even want to say something—that never happened at the beginning of the year.”

Students were also observed making connections between the science learning activities and everyday life in 2015 and 2018. In 2018 at an exhibit about dinosaurs, one student was looking at a model of dinosaur teeth. “These teeth might come loose,” he told one of the teachers. “They’re like my teeth.” He opened his mouth and pointed to his own teeth. During the animal-themed week of the program, another student was touching animal furs at a table while her class was taking turns walking through the Live Animal Care Center. She stroked a skunk fur and said, “That’s a skunk; you have to take a bath in tomato juice,” making a connection to the experience of being sprayed by a skunk.

In 2015 and 2018 BPS teachers were asked to provide an assessment of their students’ observed behaviors before and after the BEST Program. The assessment included behaviors such as how much interest a student shows in science, how the student connects science to everyday life, and social participation (such as joining in an activity with peers or taking turns). Teachers assessed students’ social behavior by completing a pre-post survey that was adapted from the Autism Social Skills Profile (ASSP), a standardized measure of social functioning for children with ASD (Bellini and Hopf 2007). The ASSP behavioral item list was adapted to include the social behaviors most likely to occur during the BEST Program. In addition, two behaviors related to science engagement (i.e., shows interest in science, connects science to everyday life in school) were added to the measure. Students’ behaviors are scored on a scale of 1 to 4, with 1 indicating “never” or “almost never” exhibits the skill or behavior, and 4 indicating “very often” or “always” exhibits the skill or behavior. In 2015 the ratings on all the social behaviors measured by the adapted ASSP averaged higher after participation in the BEST Program than before the program (see Figures 1 and 2).

These findings held true in 2018 for all the same behaviors that were measured in 2015—average ratings for all social behaviors measured by the adapted ASSP were higher after the program. In particular, in 2018 average teacher ratings showed the biggest change for students showing interest in science and initiating greetings with others. Average teacher ratings also increased for students connecting science to everyday life in school. Teachers also reported that their students were engaging in social and science-related behaviors more often after participating in the BEST Program.

Students themselves also reflected on their museum experiences toward the end of each field trip. During every MOS visit, following all the museum activities, the BU OT graduate students engaged the BPS students in a brief activity to support them in reflecting on the goals they had set for the visit and their sense of belonging at the MOS that day. This reflection was scaffolded with visual images of the students’ goals. The students either pointed to the image that portrayed their performance or used the visual cue to discuss their performance and perspective of belonging at the MOS. In 2015 students’ ratings for statements such as “I like science” and “I think about science when I’m not in school” both averaged at least 3 on a 4-point scale, where a 1 represented “disagree a lot” and 4 represented “agree a lot.” In 2018 the reflection changed to yes or no rather than a 4-point scale. Students answered “yes” or “no” to four statements:

• “I felt like I got along with others at the museum.”
• “I felt like I was part of the group.”
• “I liked the way I interacted with the group.”
• “I liked what we did at the museum.”

Across the six weeks, the number of “no” answers from students steadily decreased, from five “no” answers in week 1 to just one “no” on one of the four statements in week 6. Students’ positive feelings about museum activities and their social interactions appeared to increase as the program progressed.

Essential elements

The BEST Program is particularly unique in that it benefits not only the visiting students, but all members of the BEST Program partnership. While the students with ASD are able to visit a museum, the OT graduate students are learning the value of engaging youth with ASD in community-based contexts and how to support them in doing so. Museum staff have the opportunity to gain experience in working with and developing programs for students with ASD, while K–12 professionals gain confidence in bringing their students on successful field trips.

The BEST Program can help inform best practices in informal science education, as well as be an example for similar partnerships in other communities. As every community has differing needs, community partnerships may implement such a program in modified ways. However, the essential elements of the BEST Program are as follows:

1. The program consists of at least four consecutive trips to the museum/science center to increase comfort levels, provide consistency and predictability, and encourage a sense of community belonging for the student participants.
2. The program is implemented by a museum/science center in partnership with a college or university OT program and K–12 education professionals to collaboratively design student experiences focusing on both science and social goals.
3. Students visit during regular museum/science center operating hours, integrated alongside typical visitors and participating—with support—in the general museum community whenever possible.
4. Students engage in goal-setting and view customized social stories prior to each museum/science center visit, which help students anticipate and prepare for their visit.
5. Given the resources and interactive features of museum/science center exhibits, activities are carefully designed to facilitate science learning and social interaction.
6. Students engage in reflection on their performance and goal achievement following each visit to the museum/science center.

The BEST Program shows that with care and collaboration, students with ASD can be supported inclusively in informal learning settings and benefit from such inclusion. Additionally, it demonstrates how a thoughtful partnership between multiple institutions can creatively address the needs of underserved students in their shared community. The BEST Program is a demonstrably successful approach for communities looking to support students with ASD in science engagement and social participation.

Katie Slivensky (kslivensky@mos.org) is the school and youth programs coordinator at the Museum of Science, Boston, in Boston, Massachusetts. Ellen Cohn (ecohn@bu.edu) is a clinical professor and the entry-level OTD program director in the Dept of Occupational Therapy in the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts. Alexander Lussenhop (alussenhop@mos.org) is a research associate at the Museum of Science, Boston, in Boston, Massachusetts. Christina Moscat (cmoscat@mos.org) is the program manager of school and youth programs at the Museum of Science, Boston, in Boston, Massachusetts.

citation: Slivensky, K., E. Cohn, A. Lussenhop, and C. Moscat. 2019. The BEST partnership program: Supporting students with ASD by Connecting schools, museums, and occupational therapy practitioners. Connected Science Learning 1 (10). https://www.nsta.org/connected-science-learning/connected-science-learning-april-june-2019/best-partnership-program

People have been making since the first human used a tool, and have continued to create things for both fun and function. From building model trains to quilting, from woodworking to baking, people have for centuries been enriching their own lives by following their passions and enriching others’ lives by sharing their knowledge and the products of their labor. The recent “Maker Movement” celebrates the value of these hands-on activities, and the education community has recognized that making is a meaningful way for young people to engage in the same process that science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) professionals use to design solutions to real-world problems (Blikstein and Krannich 2013; Vossoughi and Bevan 2014). Maker programs often use a Project-Based Learning (PBL) approach focused on process rather than product, supporting problem-solving and critical thinking. The Maker programs, however, are distinct from PBL in their particular emphasis on having participants use tools (sometimes digital), build objects, and engage in the engineering design process (EDP) (Chan and Blikstein 2018). Over the last 10 years, makerspaces have been opening up in science centers, museums, libraries, and schools, attracting people from all age groups and offering opportunities to brainstorm, plan, prototype, test, revise, and finalize creations that reflect makers’ personal interests (Honey and Kanter 2013).

The interest-driven nature of maker programming inspired the IDEAS project. People on the autism spectrum are as heterogeneous as any group of people, but one trait that many have in common is that they develop deep, focused interests in particular topics. In formal educational settings, these interests are sometimes pathologized and treated as something they need to overcome so that they can focus on their school work or learn how to socialize around mainstream topics. However, research has shown that interventions that draw on these focused interests actually help students with autism improve their social, academic, and executive function skills (Gunn and Delafield-Butt 2015; Kaboski et al. 2014; Koegel et al. 2012; Kryzak and Jones 2015). People in the general population socialize around their interests and are more compelled to complete tasks that interest them than tasks that do not, so these findings make sense (Ito et al. 2013). Providing youth on the spectrum with opportunities to pursue their interests alongside peers can help them realize that the things they care about can connect them to others and the wider world, rather than separate them. This is true of students with a range of challenges and abilities. Making is particularly relevant for youth who are interested in STEM, as well as art and design, because it requires them to go through the creative and iterative processes that are naturally part of those fields (Bevan, Ryoo, and Shea 2017). With continued poor postsecondary and career outcomes for youth with autism and other disabilities, it is essential to develop programs that will enable this segment of the population to gain the social and executive function skills needed to engage in meaningful work, and to ensure that society can discover the unique perspectives these individuals can offer (Anderson et al. 2014; Shattuck et al. 2012; Wei et al. 2013; Wei et al. 2018).

Collaborative design process

The team used a collaborative design process to adapt a museum-based 3-D Design and Fabrication Maker Program for autism inclusion middle schools. This process required the involvement of various stakeholder groups, but especially those who would be using the program, since the program must meet their needs and fit within their normal practice to be implemented sustainably.

One stakeholder group consists of experts from the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Nest Support Project at New York University (NYU)’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. This group provides training and support for educators working with students with ASD, including those in the New York City Department of Education’s ASD Nest Program (Nest). Currently, Nest is in 48 elementary, middle, and high schools across New York City. The program includes more than 1,400 students on the autism spectrum, all of whom are verbal and academically at grade level, learning alongside 4,500 general education peers in classrooms that are cotaught by one general education teacher and one special education teacher. The Nest model uses a strength-based approach to support students on the spectrum. This approach focuses on identifying students’ strengths and interests and building on these to promote social and functional skills, rather than remediating students’ weaknesses. For example, if a student is deeply interested in dinosaurs and talks about them often, a remedial ASD intervention might offer the student a reward for talking about something other than dinosaurs. By contrast, a strengths-based approach would have teachers use dinosaurs as a conversation topic to get the student to engage with peers or as an essay topic to inspire the student to plan, research, and complete a piece of writing. ASD Nest Support Project staff believed that a maker program would closely align with the strengths-based approach that they already used, because making encourages students to pursue their interests.

Another important partner in this effort was the New York Hall of Science (NYSCI). NYSCI is a leader in maker programming, hosting a Maker Faire each year that is attended by tens of thousands of visitors and maintaining a makerspace where they offer summer and afterschool programs, as well as drop-in workshops and field trip experiences. NYSCI also provides teacher professional development (PD) in maker education. NYSCI’s 3-D Design and Fabrication Summer Camp Program was the springboard for the IDEAS project.

Three Nest middle schools were key partners, serving as pilot sites for the program. Two to four teachers (special education and science) per school were vital members of the design team. They took part in the initial discussions in which NYSCI’s 3-D Design and Fabrication Summer Camp model was adapted for use within middle schools. They also pilot tested the activities and provided feedback on the curriculum drafts throughout the three-year process.

NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering was another partner. Two graduate engineering students were part of the design team for the first two years of the program, helping to facilitate the maker activities in the schools and design the curriculum materials.

Education Development Center (EDC) was the research partner, organizing and documenting the design and implementation process and working closely with SRI International to collect and analyze additional quantitative data.

The first step in the collaborative design process was to have the director of the ASD Nest Support Project and an EDC researcher meet with the principals at each of the three participating Nest middle schools. We gave the principals an overview of the project goals and research plan, but we spent most of the time listening to what the principals wanted, how they imagined making could benefit their students, and how it could fit within their school’s culture and normal practices. For example, one school had existing lunchtime clubs, so we decided to conduct the program as a lunch club twice a week. The other two schools already had afterschool programs, so it made sense to offer the Maker Club after school once a week.

Year 1

In the first year of the project, before beginning the design process, team members participated in cross-trainings to ensure that all understood making and autism support techniques. Subsequently, design team members met biweekly to go through each of the activities in the NYSCI 3-D Design and Fabrication Maker Program. During these meetings, team members brainstormed ways to break up the activities into smaller and more manageable chunks, provided additional information for educators new to making, and identified autism supports that might be useful, such as checklists and visual templates.

In the spring of the first year, we pilot tested the draft program. A maker educator from NYSCI facilitated the activities, with help from the teachers on the design team and graduate students. EDC researchers observed all of the sessions and later interviewed teachers and students about their experiences. Over the summer, we further adapted the curriculum to enable teachers with no maker program experience to facilitate the activities as well.

Year 2

In the second year, the teachers on the design team piloted the lessons with help from the graduate students. At the middle and end of the year, we debriefed the teachers on their experiences and gathered feedback to inform the next iteration of the curriculum.

Year 3

In the third year of the program, the teachers on the design team implemented the revised program on their own. Midway through the year, we conducted a final debriefing session to gather feedback for the final revision of the curriculum. We also discussed possible ideas for sustaining the program after the grant ended, integrating making into science instruction more broadly, and further adapting the program for elementary, high school, or self-contained special education populations.

The IDEAS Maker Program

The IDEAS Maker Program curriculum is housed on the ASD Nest Support Project website. The curriculum has been designed as a set of 12 activities that build on one another:

1. One Sheet of Paper: Students make a 3-D object out of a sheet of paper and discuss the properties of 3-D objects.

2. Journal Making: Students create a design journal using various materials (e.g., cardstock, string, decorations) and tools (e.g., hammer, nails, sewing needles). This activity introduces students to the need to document their ideas and plans.

3. Intro to 3-D Printing: Students use different materials, such as their bodies, Play-Doh, glue guns, and foam core, to understand how a 3-D printer works and its limitations. This activity also introduces students to the EDP.

4. Wooden Blocks: Students create a 3-D version of their initials or names using wooden blocks and learn how to position them for optimal 3-D printing.

5. TinkerCAD: Students learn the basics of CAD design software and digital 3-D design by transferring the design of the wooden block initials to TinkerCAD.

6. Paper Circuits: Students create a paper circuit to light up an LED and learn about the flow of electricity and how LEDs work.

7. LED Greeting Cards: Students design a card for a special occasion that uses LEDs.

8. Motors: Students design a vibrating robot or other moving object using motors and other craft materials.

9. Final Project Sketching: Students brainstorm and sketch ideas for a final 3-D design project that uses the skills they have developed.

10. Prototype Take One: Students create initial prototypes to test ideas for their final project.

11. Prototype Take Two: Students expand on their first prototype to improve it and develop a final project.

12. Final Project Board: Students create a poster that presents the maker’s journey from the initial sheet of paper to the final 3-D printed object.

We conclude the program with a showcase, in which students present posters and the various projects they made in the club. These showcases take place at their individual schools, with peers, teachers, administrators, and parents attending, and also at NYSCI, where they show their work to the makers and teachers from other schools as well as the general public. At the end each student is presented with a certificate of completion.

The curriculum comes with detailed instructions for teachers on facilitating the activities (Figure 11), as well as the following:

• A materials list for the specific activity
• Information about how to prepare for each lesson, including suggested language to use
• Guides and links to videos showing how to facilitate the final project brainstorming discussions
• Checklists for supporting executive function
• A master materials list to use when ordering materials before the program starts

There are also additional visuals to support all students, but particularly students on the autism spectrum. For example, although anyone who participates in maker programming will likely engage repeatedly in the EDP, the curriculum includes a visual model of the EDP for teachers to put up as a poster and for students to include in their design notebooks. The latter enables students to refer to the EDP throughout the program, to help them see where they are in the process, and to make it clear that obstacles such as prototype failures are not a problem but an integral part of the design process (Figure 12).

While the program has a detailed curriculum, teachers were able to use its materials flexibly, taking components they needed, improvising, and even creating additional materials such as PowerPoint slides listing each activity’s objectives. This flexibility meant that some students chose to participate in the club more than once over the years. Even though the sequence of activities was the same, students could make unique objects each time, so they remained engaged with the process.

Table 1

Different implementation formats for the IDEAS Maker Program

Table 2

IDEAS Maker Program participation over three years

In this final year, the IDEAS Maker Program was implemented at the three participating schools in three different ways (see Table 1). Teachers had no difficulty recruiting for the clubs. About 25% to 50% of the students in each club were on the autism spectrum (see Table 2). All of the teachers from the design team were able to run the program without any assistance from researchers, museum staff, or graduate students. In addition, they were able to order most of the materials through their district purchasing system.

Data collection and initial findings

Throughout the project, the research team has collected the following data about the program, on which we will report in this article^[1]:

• Observations of the program sessions
• Interviews with teachers, principals, students, and parents
• Audio and video recordings of five students’ (four on the spectrum) social interactions over two weeks for a pilot study

Our findings from the observations and interviews indicate that interest-driven maker programming is well-suited to supporting the way youth on the autism spectrum think, work, and interact. All of the students on the spectrum successfully completed program activities and final projects and presented their projects at the maker showcases. Teachers running the program reported that they needed fewer ASD supports in their Maker Clubs than they typically needed during the school day, and that students were able to work through frustration, initiate and complete projects based on their interests, and socialize with peers far more than they did during the school day. Of particular note are some individual cases:

• Robert^[2] was very interested in science and spent science class constantly asking questions related to his own interests rather than the topic being taught. Teachers reported that once he joined the Maker Club, he was able to “save up” his off-topic questions, discuss them with the science teacher who co-led the club, and delve deeply into his interest in electronics. Robert created his own laptop computer as his final project.
• Eduardo was socially disengaged and would pace and talk to himself about his personal interest in geopolitics during class and lunchtime. In the Maker Club, he designed a project based on this interest—a board game on the colonization of Africa. He also discovered that another student in the Maker Club shared his interest, and they developed a friendship that extended outside of the club. His pacing and self-talk during the school day decreased.
• Cooper was socially disengaged from his peers and would spend a lot of time scripting, or repeating things to himself, instead of engaging in conversation with others. In class, he would only do the bare minimum of work to get by. In the Maker Club, however, he was extremely productive, quickly coming up with project ideas that reflected his interests in food and internet memes and designing objects such as a cupcake maker and a meme bingo game. He would talk to his peers about the things he made with a sense of humor that his teachers and peers had not seen before.

We also conducted a pilot social engagement study that analyzed video of five students over two weeks of the program. We analyzed the video using existing ASD research protocols (Bauminger 2002; Usher et al. 2015). The analysis of the pilot data showed that three out of the five observed Nest students engaged in social interactions for over 50% of the observed time, a higher rate than the general education students. This interaction was characterized by increased frequency of spontaneous social initiation, attentive responses to others, and reciprocal conversations with peers (Koenig, Martin, Vidiksis, and Chen 2018). Teachers elaborated on these findings in interviews. For example, one teacher expressed the following about a boy in the club:

"He started off as someone who was completely isolated, struggling. When we first met him he would cry often. He would be in the hallway at least three times a day. School was overwhelming; it triggered so many things. And then he joined the club and he found friendship… He found other people that have the same targeted interests as him.”

When a teacher from another school was asked if she had observed any program-related benefits carrying over into the regular school day, she said:

"I think the social component of it. I supervise lunch duty and I see them sitting together and I see [non-Nest] students now interacting with the [Nest] students, who they wouldn’t interact with [before]…Part of the reason why they’re interacting with each other is because they have something in common to talk about.”

A teacher described a particular interaction a student made during the Maker Club:

"He initiated a meaningful interaction with two girls who he doesn’t talk to on a regular basis. That was one example where I saw that he was able to move past himself, be able to read the room, find something that he liked, and then initiate an interaction. I thought that was something that I really was able to see that was different from before.”

Lessons learned

The process of codesigning and iteratively testing a maker program in autism-inclusion middle schools has helped us learn a number of important lessons about program development that can be applied to similar efforts:

• Build a shared understanding across partners. The project team started with a general goal of bringing maker programming to autism inclusion schools in New York City. However, because the partners came from different disciplines (autism support, education, informal STEM programming, research, and engineering), we had to make a concerted effort to understand what that meant from each other’s perspectives. Having all of the project team members trained in autism support techniques and maker education helped us build knowledge and empathy. In addition, having multiple stakeholders participate in the design meetings was essential for ensuring that the program design choices made sense to all of the participants.
• The program should address the needs and contexts of schools. It would be futile to develop a program that would not work within the norms and constraints of the schools for which it was created. Rather than diving into the program design and then later trying to convince schools to use it, we started with the notion that administrators and teachers at the participating schools had to set the parameters within which the design team had to work. We conducted the iterative testing in the settings in which the program would take place so we could immediately understand the challenges and opportunities within those environments.
• Knowledgeable, school-based facilitators should run the program. One key element of this program is that it was intended to be run by teachers, particularly special education teachers, from the schools in which it takes place, and not by outside informal educators. This is crucial for a number of reasons. First, all of the teachers in these inclusion schools have training in autism support techniques and are experienced working with this population. Second, many of the teachers knew the specific students in the program and therefore understood what particular techniques worked for them. Third, because of the need to organize and store materials and student work, having teachers who were familiar with the building and who had easy access to classrooms and storage spaces was valuable.
• Making can help educators know their students better. Because making allows participants to pursue interests in the depth and the ways that they want, students on the autism spectrum needed fewer supports in the program than they normally needed in class. Facilitating the maker program gave teachers an opportunity to see what their students on and off the spectrum were capable of accomplishing without the pressure of covering subject area content. Some students were able to engage productively and interact with peers in ways that the teachers had never seen before. That changed the teachers’ expectations of their students.
• Making lends itself to universal design for learning (UDL). Many of the characteristics of maker programming—it is hands-on, visual, kinesthetic, and allows participants to work at their own pace and express themselves in various ways—make it consistent with UDL principles. The instructional supports we developed, such as checklists and visuals, could benefit everyone.

We hope to see the IDEAS Maker Program sustained in the three participating schools, to scale the program to other middle schools, and to create versions for older and younger students, self-contained classrooms, and other districts. We are even considering initiating a new design process in a teacher education program. To learn more about IDEAS, please see our National Science Foundation STEM for All showcase video or listen to podcasts about the program available on the No Such Thing podcast.

Acknowledgment

The program and research described in this article were funded by the National Science Foundation (grant #1614436).

^[1] In this final year of the program we are also collecting data that we will report on in a future article:

• Surveys of students’ STEM self-efficacy and career interest based on validated surveys (Bathgate, Shunn, and Correnti 2014; Chen and Usher 2013; Kier et al. 2014) and their understanding of the engineering design process (EDP).
• Assessments of students’ understanding of the EDP based on a validated assessment (Hsu, Cardella, and Purzer 2012)
• Audio and video recordings of 12 students’ social interactions over eight weeks

^[2] Names have been changed to protect student privacy.

Wendy Martin (wmartin@edc.org) is research scientist at Education Development Center in New York, New York. Regan Vidiksis (RVidiksis@edc.org) is research associate at Education Development Center in New York, New York. Kristie Patten Koenig (kristie.koenig@nyu.edu) is principal investigator of the ASD Nest Support Project and chair of the Department of Occupational Therapy at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University in New York, New York. Yu-Lun Chen (ylc317@nyu.edu) is a PhD student in the Department of Occupational Therapy at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University in New York, New York.

citation: Martin, W., R. Vidiksis, K. Patten Koenig, and Y-L Chen. 2021. Making on and off the spectrum. Connected Science Learning 1 (10). https://www.nsta.org/connected-science-learning/connected-science-learning-april-june-2019/making-and-spectrum

In the last two decades, precollege engineering education has become more prevalent. At the same time, the number of children diagnosed with autism is rapidly growing. Over half a million children with autism will enter adulthood in the next decade (Roux et al. 2013). Therefore, more than any time before, it is important to provide effective and appropriate engineering experiences for children with autism so that they can gain technology and engineering expertise, as well as competencies to become users and innovators of technology. Although some researchers have investigated the engineering thinking of elementary-age children, very few have focused on that of neurologically different children. Therefore, there is a need and opportunity to develop research-based engineering resources for neurodiverse children. In line with the call to diversify engineering education and support the engineering learning of all children, a group of researchers at Purdue’s INSPIRE Research Institute for Pre-College Engineering has started investigating aspects of neurodiversity in engineering education and developed a set of engineering activities for children with autism. Below, we share a design activity developed to engage children with autism in engineering.

Design an Amusement Park is a series of engineering design activities that provides opportunities for children with autism to engage in engineering thinking while having fun playing with toys. Currently, the activities are designed to be appropriate for two age ranges: lower elementary (ages 5–7) and upper elementary (age 8 above). In these activities, children are asked to design and build an attraction, such as a playground, skatepark, or rollercoaster, using a toy that encourages spatial thinking, engineering design, and creativity.

Design an Amusement Park activities can be adapted to formal and informal learning environments. The activities are group-based with adult (e.g., parent or educator) facilitation. A detailed adult guide is included at the beginning of each activity. The activities can be used with all children, but are designed with special considerations for children with autism. While designing the activities, we considered both possible strengths and difficulties of children with autism. Depending on the children, the activities can last 90 to 120 minutes, in one or more sessions.

The Roller Coaster Challenge

In this Brief, we highlight the Roller Coaster Challenge, which is designed for upper elementary grades. The activity consists of seven main components:

1. Read-aloud with a children’s book, The Most Magnificent Thing, which shares a fictional story about a girl’s adventures as an engineer
2. First letter from the director of the amusement park, introducing the design problem
3. Engineering design process
4. Warm-up challenges to gain familiarity with the construction kit and its pieces
5. Second letter from the director of the amusement park, a recap of the problem that also introduces criteria to consider
6. A message to the director to guide children in evaluating their solution
7. Certificate of “Young Engineer” to hand out at the end of the activity

The Roller Coaster Challenge was modified after conducting a qualitative case study. A case study is an empirical inquiry that can provide an in-depth exploration of a phenomenon (e.g., engineering design behaviors) within a “case” (Yin 2009). In this case study we focused on three pairs of parent and child with autism as they engaged in the roller coaster activity. The preliminary findings of our study revealed that children with autism can engage in all aspects of the engineering design process. However, not all of the children needed the included prompts and considerations. Thus, differentiation in using the prompts to meet individual needs is an important component of this and other activities designed for children with autism. Parents’ (or other adults’) support played an important role in the children’s engineering engagement, problem-solving, and persistence in troubleshooting.

This link captures research-based design considerations and adult facilitation strategies used in the development of these activities. The “Autism Considerations for Design Activities” table (see Resources) can serve as a guide for other researchers and educators who design learning materials for children with autism.

Other INSPIRE learning resources can be checked out here.

Hoda Ehsan (hehsan@purdue.edu) is a graduate student in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Elizabeth Gajdzik (egajdzik@purdue.edu) is the assistant director of the INSPIRE Research Institute for Pre-College Engineering in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Monica Cardella (cardella@purdue.edu) is the director of the INSPIRE Research Institute for Pre-College Engineering and an Associate Professor of Engineering Education at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.