I've spoken about this a few times before, but I wanted to share something we've done, to help our low functioning teenager with Autism, gain a bit more independence.
Gavin is seventeen years old and struggles in most areas of his life. He's unable to remember things, and his cognitive ability is in a slow, unending decline.
One of the things that we've recently done to help him better manage his daily life, weekly schedule and bedtime routine, is introduce some home automation into his room.
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I've been working on automating our home over the last year or so. For whatever reason, Gavin was resistant to being included in this process but a few days ago, he decided he'd like to give it a try and that's pretty exciting because Gavin's not someone who embraces change.
The changes were simple.
I ordered him a new hanging lamp for his room because all he had before was a desk light. He didn't want anything else, despite many attempts to add better lighting over the years. My wife and I figured we would respect his wishes, even though we wanted more for him.
[gallery columns="2" ids="49659,49658"] The second addition to his room was a Philips Hue White Bulb. This would allow for him to completely control the light levels in his room.
Lastly, I installed an Amazon Echo Dot on his bookshelf. This will be the brains of the operation and a *central hub *if you will, for Gavin's bedroom automation.
I'm not gonna lie, I'm so excited that he decided he wanted a new light, which led to everything else.
Why would I want to automate his room? That's the million dollar question.
The main reason for this is simple but complicated. It's simply complicated, but let me try to explain.
Gavin's is a kid whose body and mind are failing him in many ways. He's lost a great deal of both gross and fine motor skills. His memory is slippery on the best of days and he needs constant reminders.
As his father, I want him to have as much independence as possible.
I look at the Amazon Echo Dot as a *personal assistant *of sorts for him. He can manage his light, using only his voice. He can set timers, alarms, play his favorite music, check the weather, set reminders and even check his schedule for the day, all with his voice.
One issue we did run into was that Gavin's very difficult to understand because his ability to speak has regressed significantly over the years. I had his room listed as *Gavin's Room *within the Alexa app. Unfortunately, every time Gavin tried to issue a command to Alexa, she heard *Heaven's Room *instead of *Gavin's Room. *This was very frustrating for him.
After thinking about it a little bit, it occurred to me that we could refer to his room as *Base.*
Gavin has a form of schizophrenia and part of his delusions revolve around his room being a base of operations for his team of interdimensional super heroes.
I changed the trigger world from *Gavin's Room *to *Base, *and it works like a charm. Gavin is thrilled that he can say, *Alexa, turn the Base light on. *
In the coming weeks, I'm going to help him learn to use his *personal assistant *to help him manage his schedule. We'll set reminders to ensure he takes his meds on time, knows when to expect deliveries of his infusion supplies and even when his next therapy or doctors appointment is.
With just a few words, he'll be able to know what the week has in store for him and what the weather is going to be like along the way.
For kids with developmental disabilities, these seemingly routine tasks can prove to be exceptionally challenging. Being able to find ways of using available technology to help improve independence and quality of life is such a rewarding thing for a parent.
It's only been a couple of days since we started down this road but we're already seeing Gavin taking advantage of these new things in his life.
I'm so proud of him for deciding to try these changes out and then doing so well, once they were done.
As I always say after one of these posts, I've been bitten by the home automation bug. Everything began with our Vivint Home Automation system, and I've been slowly adding things as we go along.
You can learn more about what I'm talking about by visiting here.
