HortiHope is a company that wants to breakdown barriers to gardening for everyone. We are also interested in supporting research to prove horticultural activities help all people but especially people with autism.
I am the Managing Director of Hortihope and also a Neuroscience PhD student at Rutgers University. I have 2 main focus areas for my research.
Video Mediated Training Research
The objective of this study is to assess the stress level and engagement of students in differently delivered training. The students will include students and trainees with learning and/or developmental disabilities in addition to neurotypical students. The training will be delivered in multiple forms, pre-recorded single viewer, prerecorded with additional participants, pre-scripted live one-on-one and/or pre-scripted live with additional participants.
Horticultural Therapy Research
The objective of this study is to assess the stress level and engagement of students in Horticultural Vocational Training. The students will include students and trainees with learning and/or developmental disabilities who are offered vocational training as part of their service learning experiences. We will compare how horticultural vocational training compares to other forms of vocational training like working at a grocery store, as a dental hygenist, screenprinter, quality control and in a commercial kitchen.
In both of these projects, we aim to determine which training is least stressful and most engaging for students and if differences exist based on a specific disability with a focus on students with autism spectrum disorder, by taking various measures of stress indicators including heart rate variability, blood pressure, skin temperature, salivary stress markers, as well as eye gaze and direction.
Please help support my research and my mission to breakdown barriers to gardening for everyone!
