Journal of Psychiatry

How to develop instructional videos to familiarize young autistic adults with grocery tasks with a view to vocational integration

6^th European Autism Congress

May 27-28, 2024 | Paris, France

Claude Vincent, OT PhD, Université Laval, Canada

Frédéric Dumont, PhD, Cirris, Canada

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Psychiatry

Abstract:

Young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) face challenges in obtaining employment. One strategy to address this issue is to offer support to future employees and employers. Ten studies [1-5] report on videos with commentary, but none report on videos that are accompanied by questions to be addressed directly to people with ASD. Research objectives were to design instructional videos allowing the familiarization of people with ASD to several tasks in a grocery store; and to validate the content of the instructional videos as well as the post-visioning questions. Method: ‘Research-development’, iterative content validation and practicability were achieved. Eleven employees of a grocery store were filmed performing tasks in 7 departments. The clips were edited with iMovie. Text read aloud was inserted to add information about sensory stimuli, social skills, safety, and hygiene. Each video was followed by questions. Four validation phases were carried out with different groups of stakeholders. Four autistic youth in a work training organization had tested successfully 6 to 9 instructional videos. Results: A man of 26 years old was positive for 6 videos and negative about 3 tasks (Wrapping cheese, Placement of Products in the charcuterie section, Sous-vide). He had no discomfort 67% of the time. What bothers him often were the smell, social contacts, and the texture. Twenty-one instructional videos from 2 to 6 minutes cover fish section(n=5), fruits and vegetables(n=2), cash register(n=2), grocery store display(n=2), bakery(n=3), cheese and charcuterie(n=4) and ready-toeat( n=3). Questions allow to verify the future employee’s interest and discomforts, while ensuring their understanding, safety and hygiene. In the Image, you have the questions asked after the video of Packing Salmon at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=aSz_NzFPIB4. In conclusion, education, rehabilitation, and community stakeholders can use the response to the questions to target socio-professional interests while providing a space for discussion about future integration into grocery store work. Videos and questions available at Cirris research products

Biography :

Claude Vincent has her expertise in evaluation tools and assistive technologies in improving the rehabilitation and social integration. In the context of employability for neuro-atypical people, she uses partnership and cross-sectoral research with mixed methods, to draw on the viewpoints of community organizations, public work rehabilitation services, rehab and education academics, and industry. Then, she has developed all those videos for jobs in grocery with a huge research team and collaborators. She’s now doing the same but with manufacturing tasks (e.g. making resistors for microelectronics circuits). She’s occupational therapist since 1990, and has experience in research since 1997, in evaluation and in teaching both in a rehabilitation center (at the Cirris, Center for interdisciplinary research in rehabilitation and social integration) and university. She always advocates an approach centered on the person in their environment, which is why she always defends the importance of each assessment tool considering the physical and human work environment.