Comparative evaluation of play environment design elements in autism schools using AHP and GRA

Autistic children have unique cognitive, sensory, and social needs, and play environments are key to their development, yet existing research lacks systematic quantitative evaluation frameworks. This study fills this gap by evaluating key design elements of play environments in autism schools within the Yangtze River Delta Region through an integrated Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) framework-an innovative methodological attempt in this field. Focusing on developmental outcomes for autistic children, the research systematically prioritizes ten critical design elements across four autism-specific institutions using structured expert evaluations. AHP assigned objective weights to each element, while GRA enabled a comparative assessment of environmental performance based on expert and teacher inputs. Results highlight safety and sensory-friendly design as the most critical factors, whereas personalization and spatial size showed lower significance. The findings advance evidence-based strategies for optimizing autism school play spaces, propose a balanced design framework harmonizing safety, sensory regulation, and social interaction, and provide support for formulating autism-friendly educational environment policies.