Part 2 AI For Autism Care and Smart Home Safety for IDD Families

This episode explores how practical, accessible technology can transform the home environment for individuals with special needs by improving safety, increasing independence, and enriching daily life. Mike Courtney outlines a simple but powerful framework, evaluating each room for safety risks, everyday challenges, and opportunities for enrichment, while leveraging a growing database of thousands of real-world solutions, from smart home devices to best practices. AI plays a central role by continuously updating options and recommending personalized solutions, helping families discover tools they may not have known existed. 

The conversation emphasizes balancing independence with safety through technology that acts as a “second set of eyes,” while also addressing the realities of limited funding and the need to maximize impact and efficiency. Looking ahead, advancements in robotics, data-driven dashboards, and community-driven collaboration promise to further enhance care, with a future vision of scalable home assessment and support services. The key message is clear: rather than fearing emerging technologies, families and caregivers should embrace them as powerful tools to create safer, more independent, and more fulfilling lives. 

If you're interested in joining our private Facebook community for parents and caregivers seeking residential options, guidance and peer support for profoundly autistic adults or adults with complex needs - click here! 

Transcript

Mike Carr (00:05):

Well, welcome back. Last week we started talking to Mike Courtney who founded Daily Living Labs, is a futurist, angel investor, professor. And this week we're going to continue that conversation about what changes can be made in one's home that are practical applications of technology to keep your special needs child or adult safer, let them do things more independently and enrich their lives. And also how to get ahold of Mike so that if you would like to participate or if you'd like to talk to him a little bit more about what they're doing and where some of the students he's working with are going. So here comes part two of the episode of Mike Courtney on Daily Living Labs. I think I agree absolutely. And I know one of the things that every parent's concerned with is safety, that we want our special needs teens and adults to be as independent as they possibly can be.

(01:00):

And we also want to make sure though that they're safe and if they have one-on-one care and the attendant's paying attention, the colleagues paying attention and you trust them, great. But ideally they could be doing more things on their own. Maybe there's a few other folks around and it's no longer one-on-one. Now there's just one colleague for a couple or three people. What have you done or what are you seeing in terms of in that home, whether it's a temperature sensor on an oven or a lock on a fridge. I don't know all the things you guys have looked at, but things that, hey, they're approachable, they're available, they're not that expensive. Here's some things right now that from a safety standpoint are maybe worth taking a look at or that I'm optimistic about.

Mike Courtney (01:38):

We've gone through and we've had the professors and their students collect from various sources and repositories lists of actual solutions where I think we're up to almost 2,000 now that we've vetted out and said, "This is a real thing. It exists. It's there right now." And the other thing we've done is we've created sort of like a framework where we can go in and do an assessment room by room. And so for each room in a home, you'd be able to say, "Where's the danger or risk?" To humans or to property. Because sometimes it's not that somebody's going to harm themselves, but they might do something that harms the property. So- and-so likes to cook and most days can cook certain things. We do worry that one out of 20 times he's going to risk burning the place down. Okay, that'd be a problem. And I count myself in that thing, "Yeah, I get busy." I'm like, "Wait, I left what?

(02:24):

Oh, whoops." So we all make mistakes. But so each room in the home, where's the danger or risk and whether it's a danger or risk to a human or to property and then where's the frustration or challenge? Where are the things that I wish I could or I could, but it's really frustrating and it takes a long time and I may just therefore give up and not even try to do it in favor of having somebody else do it for me because those are things if we can achieve some solution there really delivers a lot of independence and freedom. And then the third bucket is enrichment. Maybe we're keeping the person and the property safe, maybe we're avoiding frustrations and challenges, but what's left? Well, enrichment because the goal, as you know, is not just to say, well, they're safe, they're fed, they're cared for, but they're bored and they don't really live an enriched life because that's not really a life.

(03:10):

So eliminate the danger and risk, try to overcome the frustrations and challenges, but then where can we enrich their life? How can we make their life more meaningful and more joyful? And so we look at that room by room by room and then map those issues and those frustrations and those opportunities for enrichment back to the various affordances, the devices, the technologies or even the routines or best practices. It's not always a technology and map those back so that each room in the home can play a role in helping that individual and/or helping the caregiver who's caring for someone.

Mike Carr (03:43):

Now, I know when we had the Zoom call with Dr. Nazir and half dozen or so of his students the other day, they showed us a dashboard

Mike Courtney (03:52):

Where

Mike Carr (03:53):

There were a variety of inputs all integrated together and synced together so that we had lots of data points throughout the day and over the week specific to our son and some of those three domains that you mentioned, right? Safety and is he learning and are we enriching his life? And then there was a discussion, which I was most interested in is next semester or next year.

(04:16):

What

(04:16):

Do you see on the horizon in terms of things that you think, "Hey, I believe that the next class or the next group of students, or there's certainly an opportunity for us to suss out further." Like you mentioned the list of almost 2,000 devices or items. Do you keep that up? Do you say,

Mike Courtney (04:33):

Okay

Mike Carr (04:33):

Have enough now. Now let's try to ferret out of that, the top 10." I mean, just what are some of the things you think you guys might be working on over the next six to 18 months or so?

Mike Courtney (04:41):

In terms of those lists, we don't want to just collect the information once and then let it get old and go stale. So we've taken an AI centric approach to this where we didn't just find these items, say there it is, there's a list and it'll eventually gold and stale and maybe some of those products aren't available or whatever, whatever, or something news. So we built it with AI at the core where AI bots going up periodically looking for new ones, adding them to the list and or surfing to a human to say, "We found something else that looks like it belongs in the list. Do you agree? I'll add it. " So those lists are being constantly updated. Number two, we're evolving the process to the point where even somebody that doesn't describe a particular issue or concern, we may infer and sort of guess and say, "Hey, you indicated that these things were of use to you or of interest to you.

(05:25):

" Yep. Other people who also indicated those were important also said this other thing was useful. It's sort of like suggestive things sort of like Amazon. "Hey, other people who bought these three items from Amazon also were interested in this fourth item. "You're like, " Oh, actually I'm interested in that. "Oh, that's sort of weird. Great. So we're going to be able to do those things where you can say," Here are some of the things I'm facing. "We'll say," Here's some solutions, here's some things to try or consider. "But it'll also be able to say," If these things are of interest to you based on the algorithm, these other things might also be. "And they may include things that you've sort of given up on. You've become sort of noseblind too because there wasn't a solution and for years and years and years, there's nothing you could do.

(06:03):

Eventually most of us as humans just, we give up, we stop looking for that solution because we looked, it wasn't there, we looked, it wasn't there, and eventually we learned the lessons say stop looking, but this is something that will surface and things say," Hey, this is now available. Is it of interest? "And in some cases you might say," Oh my God, we looked for that years ago, but we gave up. "So this daily living labs in part is to give you hope to say the things you may have given up on may now be possible.

Mike Carr (06:28):

Yeah. And one of the challenges besides just staying current, that no parent has the time required to constantly monitor. And so using a chatbot or an AI agent or whatever to sort of do that research for you is super helpful. But the other thing is just the scarcity of talent, of human talent and the associated cost. And so I think what we've talked about before, and I've also mentioned it on the pod, multiple episodes, but it's worth mentioning again is what we're trying to do is reduce the cost or increase the efficiency of the spend. So you as a parent have, let's say some Medicaid waiver dollars, whether it's HCS or class and there's some restrictions on how you can use that money, but you want to try to use that money as effectively as possible. And there's only so much money to go around and we know there are a lot more folks aging out of the school system that are going to be needing that kind of money in the near future than currently are getting it.

(07:21):

I mean,

(07:21):

That's

(07:21):

Just a proven trend. And so the money is hard to get ahold of. It doesn't go as far as it wants to go and it's going to be even scarcer in the future than in the past. And at the same time, we want to be able to enrich lives. We want to keep people safe, all those things that you've talked about. So what is your philosophy or how are you working with the university or just in general, what are you looking for to try to suss out and have a better understanding of maybe the Venn diagram where it's the cost, the efficiency, the impact and the outcome, right? It's like, because efficiency is we can save time and we can make a therapist more productive or we can reduce the complexity of trying to stay up on something. That's different than the outcome. The outcome is that enriched life.

(08:09):

That outcome is we're seeing joy, we're seeing more excitement, we're seeing learning and maybe there's something else besides those three items, but what is your take on that and thinking into the future like you love to do, where are we going?

Mike Courtney (08:20):

I think one of the things is to have a better understanding of context and trade offs. We've talked to people in the past that says, hey, they have, let's say a parent who's no longer able to think the way they used to. If and they worry about even doing something simple like, "Well, I really need to go to the grocery store, but I'm afraid to leave grandpa alone." It's like, "What might happen?" Well, here are the dangers. Here's the things that might happen. Okay, but you're going to be gone for an hour. Yeah. Well, those are edge cases, but they're still important. So there's a trade off. I could go to the grocery store for an hour and chances are grandpa's not going to burn the kitchen down or hurt himself or fall, but there's the possibility. So we have to weigh that trade off.

(08:58):

So can technology do things that say, "Hey, when you're at the store for the hour, maybe we make it so that the stove can't run for more than 10 minutes or a camera's going to detect that he's walked away from the stove and that's getting to a temperature and whatever he was cooking is starting to burn and we'll shut it off." Okay. I can manage that trade off without putting anybody at risk, preventing them from doing things, but still put guardrails so they're safe and give the caregiver the confidence to do the things they need to do, increasing efficiency, all the positive things because the system, the home was there to be a second set of eyes, ears and instruction to help that person keep them calm, keep them company, enable them to do things on their own so that you as a caregiver can do other things, whether it's take a work call, care for somebody else in the family, go take a break, do something you need to do.

(09:47):

So again, it's working hand in hand with technology that the community helps you find, invent and integrate so that again, those trade offs aren't as difficult because we understand what we're really giving up and/or there's a pretty small delta there. It causes us to just feel better about the situation.

Mike Carr (10:06):

You've always been excited about robotics and I know when you go to CES and some of the other conferences and shows you go to, you tend to pay attention to that kind of stuff, South By too. What do you see on the horizon in the role that robots can play in the scenario you just talked about, right? Yeah. Keeping grandpa or your child safe when you have to go to the store for an hour or whatever it is. I mean, is there anything that you think, "Hey, they're still going to be very expensive for a while, but there's certain things that maybe are near or that people normally don't think about a robot doing that we should start thinking about.

Mike Courtney (10:39):

" I think robots really are going to change the game in a big way. We've already seen the evolution over the past five or six years where maybe the videos that you saw on the internet five years ago where sort of like Keystone Cops, robots are just tilt and fall over and very clumsy, couldn't do anything, but in today's world now, now you see the videos where they're practically gymnasts and doing parkour and can do back flips and dance and much more nimble, not as fragile. So to have that as a caregiver or as a component for the care environment, because it might be something as simple as, "Hey, maybe I'm in a wheelchair and the thing I want is in the fridge, but it's on a top shelf in the back, I can't reach it. " And so even something as simple as, "Okay, I can get that for you.

(11:21):

I can do this, I can do that. I can get something that maybe Amazon delivered that you ordered, but the Amazon person put it on the step instead of the porch or I can't get to it, but they can bring it in. " In the near term though, they will be more expensive. They'll get cheaper in cost, but I also think we have to worry about where the robots are coming from. Is there an override? Is somebody in a different country going to be able to turn all these robots on at the same time and have them do something as a sleep or sell? And even if we say, "Hey, okay, we're going to be able to use humanoid robots, but only from these companies or countries because of safety and security, national security or something, somebody's going to be like, I bought the robot from Timu.

(11:59):

It was a real good deal. I know I'm not supposed to have it, but ... " And then you've got robots that who knows what they'll do. So we've got to be aware of what the possibilities are and as a futurist, that's what we do is what are the possibilities? It can do really great stuff there. What are the unintended consequences? Okay, we've got to make sure that it doesn't do things that you're like, wait a minute. So the individual got upset because something was upsetting them okay and the robot did what? Wait, it put the dog where? So the dog was upsetting the human so it took the dog and put it, oh wait, no, that's not what I should have done. So we're going to have to work through those issues to say, "Okay robot, don't put the dog in the closet just because the dog was barking and that upset this person, let's come up with a different routine and teach it what appropriate things are.

(12:42):

" Because robots and AI doesn't, they don't yet know what's truly appropriate. If we ask an AI to cool off the room you're in because it's too hot, it might rip the roof off and go, "Well, you wanted it cooler. It's cooler, isn't it? " Right. "Yeah, but I didn't want you to blow out the windows and remove the roof. Time out. " It didn't know what was appropriate because it's not human. It'll get better, but we've got to watch out for those gotchas.

Mike Carr (13:02):

If somebody wants to get in touch with you, because you mentioned several things here, you mentioned going through someone's home

(13:09):

And

(13:09):

Doing sort of a safety audit or maybe understanding a little bit more about their particular situation. Understand you're not selling a product or a service yet. You're sort of working with academia and students

(13:21):

And

(13:21):

Cross interdisciplinary, multiple departments in a university to suss this out. But if someone did have questions or they just wanted to find out more about what you and maybe Professor Nazir and his students are up to, is there an email address or is there a webpage? Where would you send people for more information?

Mike Courtney (13:39):

There's multiple ways. One, you can go to dailylivinglabs.com and communicate with us that way. My email is mike@aperioinsights.com. Aperios is spelled A- P-E-R-I-O. So Aperioinsights with an S.com. Mike Courtney out of Dallas, Texas, I'm pretty easy to find online. We are looking for additional families to participate in the next wave of research and piloting to sort of flesh out how the parts and pieces work. We are going to be into doing sort of home assessments, not just for the safety, the danger risk piece, but the frustration, overcoming frustrations and then adding enrichment as well, almost like what Best Buy does with their Geek Squad. If you wanted somebody to reboot your computer, get your TV figured out, you can call them. One of the things we are moving towards is being able to stand up our own service organization where if you say, "Hey, this is my situation.

(14:33):

I'm trying to provide an environment for this type of individual, whether it's in the home you live in or a new property, maybe somebody's going to move out, be independent," that we're going to be doing that kind of service in the future as well to help you figure out where the needs are room by room by room, how all those parts and pieces would come together and be integrated and be able to spec it out, get it installed, get it configured and then help you maintain it because not everybody is a technical person. Not everybody knows how to add and configure and how all these things will work, but for us to be able to step in and have a service organization do that, that's one of the things. But in general, right now we're still in the proving things out, building pilots and proof of concepts and we're looking for additional universities, professors, maybe they're in engineering, UIUX, design, industrial design, 3D printing, business students, the whole everything, everything is needed.

(15:24):

And then also hackers, maker space, people that like to tinker inventors because again, this needs to be a community that can help the community. So we're going to continue to build the community, continue to build this whole system and we hope within the next year we can really start to promote it and bring in dozens and hundreds and then thousands of people that both have issues and are willing to help contribute to solving issues for someone else. I really think there won't really be much of a difference between those with issues and challenges and those who have ideas or can contribute to solving them because even if you say, "Hey, I have an issue with this. " Okay, great. The community can help you solve it or find something that exists, but at the same time, you might, in the community, when you're posting that, then look around and say, "Oh, somebody has this as a challenge.

(16:12):

I've already solved that or I have an idea," and you can contribute. And contribute doesn't mean write a check or make a donation. It means contribute an idea, contribute your thoughts, your time, your thinking. That's the kind of organization I really want this to be is not the kind that has to have a big gala dinner every year and raise a lot of sponsorship dollars that the community itself can solve the community's issues and even people with a disability or caregivers can help others with an idea, a modification, a suggestion, or helping mock something up.

Mike Carr (16:42):

I think that sounds great. And so for any parent that's listening, especially if you're in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, because UNT is out of the Dallas-Fort Worth space, but they've also come down to Austin. I mean, I know Mike, you've helped us in one other family here in Austin. So right now, boots on the ground, Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin, but as you've said, if there are other universities, other professors, other folks watching this that would like to

(17:05):

Help start something in their local area, you would be very open to talking to them as well and they can go to dailylivinglabs.com and take a look at some of the stuff you guys are doing there, or they can email you directly at mike@perioinsights.com. And we'll put that in the show notes so you guys can get the spelling of that correctly. Mike, to conclude though, I want to ask you if you had just one or two key takeaways that you'd want to leave, let's say parents of a special needs individual with, whether it's, "Hey, be sure and look at this or think about this because it's coming down the road." Are there any words of wisdom or guidance or reasons for hope that you'd like to throw out as a concluding remark or two to the viewers and listeners today?

Mike Courtney (17:48):

I think we're living in really amazing times. It can be really challenging because things are moving really quickly. A lot of people are worried these days about what AI will and won't do. I think we have to take action and have agency. Instead of thinking about what all these technologies are going to do to us as if we just have to sit here and take whatever happens, we have to flip the script and say, "Yeah, it could do that to us, but let me show you what I'm going to do to and for the world with it. I'm going to use it as a tool to go out and do things in the world for good that we need and we deserve not to sit back and wait for something to hit me and do something to me. I think we need to take charge of these technologies and use them for good and this is an exciting time to do it.

(18:32):

I would say that if you're a parent or a caregiver or somebody with a disability and it doesn't matter to me at this point whether they're in Texas or not, you get somebody from California, Alaska, Florida, Germany, I don't care. Reach out to me because this is a global concept, a global idea. And the things we're doing don't necessarily need us to be there physically. We can do this virtually. We can find people locally that can help you and we can start to build these systems out. So now is the time. There's been no better time than now. And in fact, I have to say, had we come up with this idea and tried it 10 years ago, I think it could have been successful, but much more so now because AI is going to help us connect dots, help us do the grunt work and leave the rest of the things that only humans can do to the humans.

(19:14):

I think we're going to be able to do amazing things with it, things that we all deserve and will benefit from.

Mike Carr (19:19):

Amen. And I think that idea that you can do it now. I mean, AI is a lot easier to use in my opinion than it was even six months ago. I mean, the most recent release of ChatGPT 5.5 can really do some things with very minimal prompting. So getting in there and just asking us some questions or making some suggestions to it. And of course, Claude Coworks is out there if you're a Claude fan. Gemini is, I think, fixing to introduce some things here in another week or two when they have their big Gemini next. So things are popping all the time. Even if you tried AI three, six months ago and it was frustrating and you didn't really know how to use it, it's gotten a lot better. It's gotten a lot easier. The free versions aren't bad, but man, for 20 bucks a month, you can do some amazing things.

(20:04):

So as Mike said, he's here to help. And if you want to contact me and say," Hey, I'd like to get ahold of those guys at Daily Living Labs. "My email is just mike@autismlabs.com. So either Mike, we're both very interested in helping parents of special complex needs kids, teens, and just anybody that has a heart and an interest in this space. So Mike, thank you so much for your time today and for everyone that's listening and watching, stay tuned. We'll have another interesting episode of Autism Labs here in a week or two. Thanks again. Bye-bye. All