Spectrum Tailored Technologies (STT) founder, Rachael, realised that combining her son's love of gaming to support him to complete everyday-tasks that he found challenging, like getting dressed, would make a considerable difference to their lives. Researching existing products, Rachael discovered they did not meet the needs of children like her son. Rachael recognised the gap in the provision of digital-tools to support everyday-tasks, aimed at younger children. She realised that innovating in this space could produce a significant impact to the lives of autistic children and their parents/carers in addition to wider economic and social benefits.
Rachael founded STT in 2022, and began her journey, deep-diving into the potential of using digital-resources and gamification to support autistic children not just to cope with, but to thrive on, the everyday tasks that could have previously caused overwhelm creating Jam Up! to address this market need. To date 87 key stakeholders, 154 parents/carers and 103 autistic children aged 5-14 years old have been involved in co-development or pilot testing of Jam Up! Jam Up! is a minimal viable product (MVP) digital-platform which incorporates task breakdown, visual communication and rewards using a virtual-pet whilst providing education and support to parent/carers. Recent pilot testing recognised Jam Up!'s potential to improve health and well-being outcomes in autistic children and their parents/carers.
This 4-month project will build on feedback from STT's recent pilot project and supports the launch of Jam Up! planned for January 2025\. The Innovate UK project will focus on integrating a new approach into the gamification (augmented reality) to enhance engagement for autistic children. This approach has been explored with support from both autistic children and University of Plymouth, and appropriate features have been incorporated into the project plan to ensure it meets the needs of autistic children (e.g. simple visuals). It will enable more pet animations and celebrations, informed by autistic children, which the user sees every time they complete one step of a task (e.g. pet doing a dance, pet smiling). In addition, two pet adventures, to celebrate the child achieving a task, will be added (e.g. pet gets to play fetch, pet can visit the zoo). STT have been working with University of Plymouth Dental School and SMILE CIC to create healthcare professional designed video scripts. This project will develop these scripts into engaging videos, providing support around tooth cleaning to parents and carers and enhancing Jam Up!.