MAS.771 | Spring 2011 | Graduate

Autism Theory and Technology

Projects

The final consists of three parts: a project and then a report and presentation concerning the project.

Project

Design an assistive technology or explore an aspect of assistive technology.

Report

For the report, we’ll basically just want all the details of what you did and how it was evaluated/how it worked. It’s NOT about writing an overview of the field or of all technology in the area, etc. We want you to focus the write up on what you did, why, how, and what you learned. Here is a possible outline:

  1. Briefly state the problem. Why is it important? At a high level what are you trying to do in this project? (~1/2 page)
  2. Briefly describe the most related references to position your work (this is not supposed to be a full lit review like in a thesis and you don’t have to talk about autism in general, statistics of disorder, etc. – skip all that stuff and focus on what you did). (~1/2-1 page)
  3. Describe what you did in your project (2-4 pages)
  4. Describe evaluation/results from what you did (2-3 pages)
  5. What can be concluded from what you did? If you can’t conclude anything yet, then what would still be needed in order to properly make the conclusions you wish you could be able to make? (In short: if you wanted to publish your project, or make it really work the way you wish it could work, what would you prioritize doing next?) (1-2 pages)

Please include important figures/tables in the above. Your report should be ~6-10 pages single-column, single spacing, margins at least 1" all around, and using 10pt or 11pt font please. References can be on an additional page if needed, but this list should be *just* what is most related to your work and which you mention in your report.

If you have lots of graphs/data/extra supporting materials, you can put those in an appendix.

These guidelines are meant to be helpful and keep you from going crazy. If they cause the latter then contact us and we can discuss.

Presentation

The presentation will be in class and should cover the same points that the report does.

Examples

Examples of past student work can be found on the 2011 course webpage.