A school of innovation

An innovative design by one IT professional is set to bring major benefits to a specialist school for autistic children in the West Midlands, thanks to a Microsoft-sponsored competition.

In July, Tim Oldham’s proposal for an internet and multimedia system for the Coddington Court School was voted winner of the DesignIT for Charity award and is in the process of being introduced at the school.

Oldham, an infrastructure architect at BT, has a daughter on the edge of the autistic spectrum and is also a trustee of the charity autism.west midlands, the school’s governing body.

‘My day job is about connecting people and making IT work for people, and my home life is geared around all kinds of digital media,’ he says. ‘One of the real problems for children at a school such as Coddington, which takes

students from across the country, is isolation. My design was geared to connecting these children with the outside world and with modern digital life.’

But for autistic children, such connectivity is by no means straightforward. Roger Painter, the school’s headmaster, says Coddington has 27 children, all of whom are very different.

‘We need to make sure internet access is tightly controlled. Some children get fixated on certain things. For example, we had one child who would only surf to look at washing machines.

We would not stop that completely, but we have to monitor and limit it,’ he says.

‘It is easy to wrap the children up in cotton wool and pretend they are somehow immune from advances in modern technology. But some of them will move into adult education or go on to a residential college, while others might move into their own flat, with support. So we have to ensure they are not isolated from the digital world.’

Oldham knew Coddington needed to introduce online communications and digital media services, but had to work closely with the school to understand what the children could and could not benefit from.

‘The range of students is diverse, with some capable of speaking to their parents over a webcam, for example, and others for whom this would be too confusing and upsetting,’ he says.

One major consideration was to reduce the complexity of the interface. ‘Nearly all the children communicate in symbols rather than text so it was very important we were able to provide a suitable interface,’ says Oldham. ‘The standard Windows Media Player interface, for example, was too complex. We had to devise a symbolic interface the children could more easily interact with.’

Another key issue was to ensure that students could access the system in a comfortable, welcoming and closely monitored environment.

‘For example, we had to be able to take the solution to them if required, which means using wireless technology and mobile devices,' says Oldham.

Speed and reliability was another major concern. Painter says some of the children tend to react quite badly if they have to wait a long time. ‘If someone was trying to log on and it kept failing, they could get frustrated and possibly aggressive,’ he says.

The use of a central server to house the school’s media content means it will not get lost or damaged, and the solid-state devices the students use are also inherently more robust than CD players, says Oldham.

Implementation of the system is being carried out jointly by Microsoft and autism.west midlands, with Oldham working in a consultancy role.

‘We do not have a “go live” date yet because we are being very careful to consult with the parents and school as we go along,’ he says.

However, initial reactions from parents, carers and students alike have been positive.

‘One example a carer gave us recently is that they were able to show one parent a video clip of their daughter jumping into the swimming pool – something she hadn’t been able to do before,’ says Oldham.

Painter says that children will also benefit from being able to communicate with one another. ‘It will be a bit like our own version of Friends Reunited,’ he says.

‘Children with autism need to be included in opportunities along with everyone else in our society. This project shows that perhaps the technology we use needs to become far more accessible to those with special needs.’

£15,000 on offer in design award