Autism smart watch - research

[psychstudentasd]

In my educational psychology degree we have been tasked with designing a "new device" to assist SEN children. As I have had previously been a 1:1 with children/teenagers with autism this is my main focus.
I was wondering if you would give a little of your time to help with customer research's response to the current idea.

The idea proposed
smart watch designed for children and adults specifically with ASD
this watch will be assisted with an app that can be controlled by parent/carer of the individual with ASD
features:

• timetable notifications to keep to daily schedule (this can be edited and controlled by the app)
• heart rate monitor (previous studies have shown emotional state can be monitored by smart watch heart rate monitors) - the watch will signal to the individual & carer that their heart rate is too high & pop up with a reminder of "grounding activities"
• GPS
• checking in how the person is feeling & if they have completed tasks on time table
• for children the possibility of educational games to appear on the watch as a reward is also available on the app
• It aims to be customisable to wearers needs and age

Any feedback given would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you

Might sound more than obvious but any actual time telling function would have to have a digital appearance to it, not analogue (or not exclusively analogue). Also consider how the device could be adapted for periods when sleep could be appropriate/normal/recommended as I would not want any notifications or interruptions during those hours.

I struggle to imagine a single watch could be appropriate for children and adults in design terms, but in general this sounds like an interesting idea (mum of teen with autism)

I have a friend who uses a fitbit to monitor her dd's heart rate and I did wonder about it for ds ... but I think it might be tricky to come up with a way to gently trigger 'grounding activities' without making someone go 'agghhh, I'm getting stressed' iykwim. I also think that different grounding activities work to deal with different stressors and in different situations which would be tricky...

I think I like the timetable idea - but again I'd want to know how it copes when you go off timetable: ds (unsurprisingly!) finds going off timetable difficult, and if that meant the rest of the day was 'off', that wouldn't help him...

Hope that's helpful and not throwing cold water - I can see something interesting in the idea but I suspect you might need to simplify to 1-2 tasks, but then allow for more flexibility within the tasks, so to speak.
Thinking about teens/preteen/younger children, in the conversations I've had with other mums, something that reminded this age group (certainly boys) about self care routines would be relevant - perhaps those 'basic' tasks that you need to do everyday but where a visual reminder (think icons rather than text) would be helpful? I guess I'm imagining a portable visual timetable type facility...?

Will think about this and discuss with my children. We’d appreciate ASC rather than ASD.

How would it distinguish between high heart rate due to stress and high heart rate due to vigorous exercise?

A lot of schools don’t allow smart watches and they are definitely not allowed in national exams - this needs to be considered. A lot of parents of children with additional needs spend incredible amounts of time and energy to get meaningful adjustments this would be another battle.

I can see the potential. I don’t see anything mentioned that would facilitate the child requesting help.

We use cozi for routines it has lists, checklists and schedules.

PECS for communication?

And YES to digital time. So important.

I think you are reinventing the wheel OP. Modern smartphones, paired with a smart watch if wanted, already offer infinite apps that can be used and adapted for autistic people.

Have you looked at existing research and existing apps and devices?