Evaluating Adaptability in ASD Classrooms: Study conducted in Egypt

87% of children on the Autism Spectrum display signs of sensory abnormalities thus interact differently with the built environment. To create better environments, guidelines suggest designing adaptable spaces to better correlate with the students’ needs yet there is no set system to evaluate adaptability. This paper aims to develop an adaptability evaluation metric for classrooms that accommodate for students on the spectrum. Drawing upon the definition of adaptability, recommendations from the literature are compiled and verified by teachers in order to understand what aspects should be adaptable and how. Once the points are defined the evaluation metric is developed. Following BREEAM’s variable weighting system, the weighting system for this guideline is based on teachers’ responses on the seriousness and impact of classroom features on the occupants and teaching process. The results from the weighting questionnaire show that lights have the most impact followed by furniture, layout and surfaces. However, the difference between the aspect with highest weighting and aspect with lowest weighting was only 5% meaning that all aspects should be attended to. Following the pre-processing, 5 centres accommodating for ASD students and 1 classroom with only neurotypicals (NT) are evaluated to test the metric and see where it lacks. The NT classroom achieved 46% and the highest classroom achieved 71%. Although no centre had advanced lighting controls, the rest of the criteria were present in at least 1 centre. Finally, interviews with 3 heads of centres were undertaken to understand what aspects they believe this metric would help with. The main benefit from this guideline, as explained by the heads is the recommendations for improvement, therefore the results presented are set as potential for improvement rather than awarding excellence. This paper presents a draft adaptability metric that needs further improvement by increasing number of criteria and verifying weighting values.