Built environment design can be considered as an influential factor in the quality of life of people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This scoping review provides an overview of the current available literature on the relationship between people with ASD and built environment in the specific field of the design of autism-friendly spaces. The literature review allowed the identification of three main factors to be considered when designing for people with ASD—the sensory quality, the intelligibility, and the predictability of the built environment—and, for each of them, a description of the spatial requirements that have been recognized as fundamental according to the specific spatial needs of people with ASD.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the ways and times of living and using urban spaces, specifically referring to the dimension of daily life. The restrictive measures introduced during the lockdown periods have necessarily led to a re-evaluation of proximity scale bringing particularly attention to issues relating to public transport and mobility and to the quality and distribution of open public spaces. This scoping review explores the relationship between the urban environment design and health referring to the constraints imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic in the period from 2020 to 2021, with two main objectives: (i) to investigate the recurring urban design topics and issues related to the spatial and social needs stressed by the emergency; (ii) to identify the urban design measures both experienced during the health emergency and proposed in view of a post-COVID urban and territorial planning as they are considered impactful on health promotion. The search strategy was based on a set of keywords searched in two electronic databases which allowed the identification of a total of 1,135 contributions. After defining the eligibility criteria, we proceeded to the screening process concluded with the inclusion of 19 studies. The analysis of the contributions led to the systematization of six main urban topics—and to the corresponding spatial requirements and project proposals—highlighted as relevant and supportive in terms of the promotion of inhabitant's public health: (i) transport, mobility and accessibility; (ii) green and outdoor spaces; (iii) public and pedestrians' spaces; (iv) care services and health network; (v) communications; (vi) public and business services. The resulting framework is useful for guiding healthy city planning toward public policies, tools, regulations, urban measures, and emergency contrast provisions, that contribute to increasing the effectiveness in terms of safety and well-being.

The paper focuses on the relationship between cities and people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Specifically, this research aims to provide practical guidelines on how to design urban policies and urban design projects, such that they improve the capabilities of people with ASD to walk across the city and access relevant public urban spaces and facilities. Although this is a well-defined field of research, this paper should be seen as a contribution to the debate on the understanding of disability as a product of processes of human-environment interaction and as an attempt to address issues of mobility for people with disabilities by taking into account their personal characteristics and capabilities. Current methodological and operational efforts on the role of spatial configuration as a means for improving the autonomy of people with ASD focus almost exclusively on the design of closed, separated, private spaces, devoted only to people with ASD (mainly children). Starting from these considerations, the paper describes a research project aimed at defining an integrated set of urban mobility policies and extra-small urban design projects to provide people with ASD a real opportunity of using their city.

In a study of patients suffering from craniosynostosis various pre- and post-operative parameters were identified that may affect subsequent intellectual capacity. In particular, facial malformations appeared to be closely correlated with impaired intellectual development. Other parameters included measurement of cranial circumference and volume; their subaverage values correlated with slight mental insufficiency. However, in the pre-operative period they cannot be used as prognostic indices because these relations were statistically not significant. The remaining parameters (neurological and electroencephalographic findings, post-operative re-ossification of the skull, pre-operative digital impressions, CT findings) did not seem to be related to intellectual development.

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