Cabibihan John-John, Javed Hifza, Aldosari Mohammed, Frazier Thomas W, Elbashir Haitham
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department, Qatar University, Doha 2713, Qatar.
Biomedical Engineering Department, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052, USA.
Sensors (Basel). 2016 Dec 27;17(1):46. doi: 10.3390/s17010046.
This paper reviews the state-of-the-art in sensing technologies that are relevant for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) screening and therapy. This disorder is characterized by difficulties in social communication, social interactions, and repetitive behaviors. It is diagnosed during the first three years of life. Early and intensive interventions have been shown to improve the developmental trajectory of the affected children. The earlier the diagnosis, the sooner the intervention therapy can begin, thus, making early diagnosis an important research goal. Technological innovations have tremendous potential to assist with early diagnosis and improve intervention programs. The need for careful and methodological evaluation of such emerging technologies becomes important in order to assist not only the therapists and clinicians in their selection of suitable tools, but to also guide the developers of the technologies in improving hardware and software. In this paper, we survey the literatures on sensing technologies for ASD and we categorize them into eye trackers, movement trackers, electrodermal activity monitors, tactile sensors, vocal prosody and speech detectors, and sleep quality assessment devices. We assess their effectiveness and study their limitations. We also examine the challenges faced by this growing field that need to be addressed before these technologies can perform up to their theoretical potential.
本文综述了与自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）筛查和治疗相关的传感技术的最新进展。这种疾病的特征是社交沟通、社交互动和重复行为方面存在困难。它在生命的头三年被诊断出来。早期和强化干预已被证明可以改善受影响儿童的发育轨迹。诊断越早，干预治疗就能越早开始，因此，早期诊断成为一个重要的研究目标。技术创新在协助早期诊断和改善干预项目方面具有巨大潜力。为了不仅帮助治疗师和临床医生选择合适的工具，而且指导技术开发者改进硬件和软件，对这些新兴技术进行仔细和系统的评估变得至关重要。在本文中，我们调查了关于ASD传感技术的文献，并将它们分为眼动仪、运动追踪器、皮肤电活动监测器、触觉传感器、语音韵律和语音探测器以及睡眠质量评估设备。我们评估它们的有效性并研究它们的局限性。我们还研究了这个不断发展的领域在这些技术发挥其理论潜力之前需要解决的挑战。
