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Ways to cope with visiting a restaurant/café, improving the experience for children.

Holly

Hiya, I am Holly and I am studying interior architecture and design. For my most recent project, I am focusing on designing a restaurant that is more inclusive to autistic children and their families. Read the full description below:

The number of children being diagnosed with autism has hugely increased in the last two decades, whilst many areas of design have adapted to the needs of neurodevelopment disorders, restaurant design in-particular remains non-inclusive. This, therefore, means autistic children and their families miss out on important family time as they often find dining out challenging due to restaurants being too overwhelming for children who are over or under sensitive to senses. But dining out is an important part of a child's development and it should be encouraged not avoided. By re-designing a restaurant space that are more autistic friendly, it will help pose a change to future design, ensuring a more inclusive future.

If you have any stories, experiences whether they are good or bad about visiting a restaurant then please comment away! Whether you are a parent and struggle taking your child out or as an adult, and avoid visiting restaurants altogether. Or do you have any tips on how you cope in this environment, are there any ways to improve the overall experience for children?

I would love to hear any feedback you have, anything will be useful to help me design an autistic-friendly restaurant and activity hub.

Parents

  • Not just for kids but also autistic adults who struggle to hear/process voices, and people who just naturally speak more quietly than others have tables along the wall and then in rows parallel to the wall row in semi enclosed booths* to keep the table space calmer, more pirivate to just the family/group not having to listen to or be listened to so easilly by strangers. Because it will help disrupt the sound travel of other table's conversations so the one you can hear loudest are actually the people at your own table as it should be. I used to serve tables so I'll just say now the best way to keep an eye on meal progress or people putting their hands up for assistance is for these tables would be for these booths to be made of a transparent material where the sides are clear and the tops are a colour to shade the main room light from the table if the main room lights are very bright.

    * The booths could be made of either a shatter proof glass or thick perspex/perspex like material, but vitally the material of the booths must not touch or else that will allow the sound to travel through because of how vibrations pick up imagine ( is one wall and 0 is another and o is a table, it would look like:
    (o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)
    (o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)
    (o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)
     If you imagine the coloured circles represent people then the V's are the sound waves being caught before they travel to the next table and because of slight echo within the booth it means you can hear the person at the table easier and nobody in the restaurant would have to "speak up" (shout) over other people in the crowded room to be heard by their own tablemates.

    You can tell as an autist, ex table server, and parent I have already though A LOT about this haha.

Reply

  • Not just for kids but also autistic adults who struggle to hear/process voices, and people who just naturally speak more quietly than others have tables along the wall and then in rows parallel to the wall row in semi enclosed booths* to keep the table space calmer, more pirivate to just the family/group not having to listen to or be listened to so easilly by strangers. Because it will help disrupt the sound travel of other table's conversations so the one you can hear loudest are actually the people at your own table as it should be. I used to serve tables so I'll just say now the best way to keep an eye on meal progress or people putting their hands up for assistance is for these tables would be for these booths to be made of a transparent material where the sides are clear and the tops are a colour to shade the main room light from the table if the main room lights are very bright.

    * The booths could be made of either a shatter proof glass or thick perspex/perspex like material, but vitally the material of the booths must not touch or else that will allow the sound to travel through because of how vibrations pick up imagine ( is one wall and 0 is another and o is a table, it would look like:
    (o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)
    (o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)
    (o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)(o)
     If you imagine the coloured circles represent people then the V's are the sound waves being caught before they travel to the next table and because of slight echo within the booth it means you can hear the person at the table easier and nobody in the restaurant would have to "speak up" (shout) over other people in the crowded room to be heard by their own tablemates.

    You can tell as an autist, ex table server, and parent I have already though A LOT about this haha.

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