9-Year-Old Inventor Creates Unique Bench Aimed at Helping Children With Autism

Avery Schneider, 9, with his award-winning invention. Justin Lowry

Like many children his age, Avery Schneider, 9, has aspirations.

The gifted fourth grader from Indiana, Pennsylvania, at first aspired to be a cardiologist. Then a baker; an engineer; and a performer one day, he said.

But for now, he will settle for being an inventor just like Thomas Edison, his hero, who awarded over 1,000 patents in his lifetime.

Avery is hopeful to get his own patent one day for his new prototype invention. This past year, the “SEL Simmer Seat'' caught the attention of judges at the local, state, and national levels of the Invention Convention competition. His idea made him the national champion for the third grade division.

Describing his invention, Avery said that he named the Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) tool thusly as an alliteration, the name alluding to the act of simmering or calming down, he said. When it comes to expressing emotions, some children, such as those who are on the autism spectrum, find it hugely difficult to control or even manage. Applying the idea behind SEL, an education method developed in the 1990s, Avery created his invention.

Avery’s educational learning prototype, a 3-foot specialized bench, encourages students to sit on a section that best represents their feelings, especially if it is difficult to vocalize those feelings. It can be used on a playground or indoors at a social event.

The idea came to Avery when he thought back to his experiences on the playground when he played with a classmate and friend in kindergarten. Avery said it wasn’t easy for his autistic friend to express, manage, and vocalize properly his frustrations. “My idea was pretty simple compared to a lot of other inventions” he said humbly.

Each colored section of the bench depicts a hand-drawn monster who children can identify with. Each monster corresponds to a specific color, which is tied to a specific emotion like anger, worry, tiredness, boredom, sadness, loneliness, or contentment.

The bench also includes instructional cards, where children can find tips to manage their emotions. The emotions are color-coded: red means angry; orange, worried; yellow, tired; green, bored; blue, sad; purple, lonely; and pink, content. He surveyed students in his school to determine which were the most important ones to include. 

Avery working on building his invention. Courtesy of Carrie Schneider

And the hand-drawn monsters? “The monsters are on the seat because when you feel an emotion, it feels like you have a monster inside of you. I learned the strategies with my parents and my teachers and my counselor. If you’re bored, for instance, one strategy is to sing one of your favorite songs or think of a dream castle or structure,” he added.

While there are a slew of SEL toys on the market that direct children to develop better skills from emotional management to responsible decision-making, Avery believes his invention is the one promising SEL concept that has yet to come to market—but he is working on getting a patent for it. “I think that people realize how much kids need emotional and social help,” he said.

Though still in prototype phase, the next step for Avery’s “SEL Simmer Seat'' is to get it patented but the young inventor is a realist: it will take time and money, he said. 

The current model is a 3-foot bench made of spare wood. His dad cut the boards and drilled them in, while Avery painted them with help from his family to draw and laminate the emotions, which are glued to the bench. Avery’s plan for bringing the product to market means expanding the bench to 7 feet with each monster emotion sized at 1 foot. And instead of spare wood, Avery’s marketable product will be made of environmentally sound polywood, or 90 percent recycled wood. 

“Really, I just want to help kids out and make the world a better place. That’s why I want to get the bench out quickly,” he said.

When Avery entered the national competition, he beat out 166,000 other entries and his winning prototype took the top prize of all K-12 competitors in the category for Innovation in Education. Avery is taking his winning invention to the next level though. In August, he’ll learn if he wins the top prize on an international level at the Invention Convention Worldwide, a virtual contest with finalists from the Americas.

Avery with a book he wrote, featuring one of the monsters on his bench. (Courtesy of Carrie Schneider

Every step of the way, Avery has found support for not only the SEL Simmer Seat but other ideas that he has thought deeply about. When asked about his next project, Avery wants to make a big splash: he says it will save people in the pool. 

His parents continue to encourage Avery to think outside the box. According to his mother, Carrie Schneider, he is naturally equipped with fresh ideas all the time. However, when he was born, he had a one percent chance of surviving. Diagnosed with lung and heart defects, Avery still has holes in his heart today, but an inhaler helps him when he experiences trouble breathing. 

But this does not stop Avery from aspiring to meet challenges, solve problems, or think through new concepts that help others live better lives.

“The doctors always said Avery would never be ordinary,” said Carrie. “But I believe he was meant to be extraordinary.”