DESIGN IMPROVEMENT OF THERAPY CLINIC FOR AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER USING ERGONOMIC ASPECTS

This paper describes the improvement of the therapy rooms in Liliput therapy clinic in South Jakarta using ergonomic aspects, in which the current therapy rooms isn't exactly ergonomic due to the seats and tables used in the therapy rooms are too small, the rooms are still cluttered due to insufficient storage and the storage itself is still put too far away from the therapy area, limited soundproofing and lighting, both natural and artificial lighting, as well as lack of withdrawal area in the therapy area to let the kids calm down. The goal of this paper is to analyze the effects of various factors of ergonomics (lighting, layout, color, and sound) affecting the sensory integration of people with autism and how to improve on them, improve the therapy facility's current ergonomics/design based on its environment, tools, and methods, and investigate the factors and parameters that inhibit development of the kids treated in the therapy facility. The methods involved in this paper include having a survey on the current therapy facility, determine problem statement based on the therapy facility's condition, develop measurement tools using questionnaires, measurements of the rooms' sound level, brightness and temperature as well as anthropometric measurements for the kids and the therapists, sampling, collect measurement data and analyze the data, and develop improvements on the therapy facility based on problems/issues faced by the kids and their therapists. Based on the results from the measurements, the therapy facility should have improved soundproofing (around 27- 32%), both natural (91%) and artificial lighting (77%) due to the lighting level far from the required minimal brightness of 250 Lux, minimal amount of stimuli especially stimuli related to sound (80.95%), texture (19.05%) and light (14.29%) in order to keep the kids focused, more ergonomic room layout for better comfort for the kids and their therapists as well as more ergonomic seats (9%) and tables (33%).