Zheng Zhi, Fu Qiang, Zhao Huan, Swanson Amy R, Weitlauf Amy S, Warren Zachary E, Sarkar Nilanjan
IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng. 2017 Jun;25(6):668-678. doi: 10.1109/TNSRE.2016.2598727.
Social communication is among the core areas of impairment for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The training of social orientation is important for improving social communication of children with ASD. In recent years, technology-assisted ASD intervention had gained momentum due to its potential advantages in terms of precision, sustainability, flexibility and cost. In this paper, we propose a closed-loop autonomous computer system, named ASOTS, for training social orientation skills to young children with ASD. This system is designed to detect and track a child's attention in response to social orientation bids and help the child towards appropriate social orientation when needed. Response to name, an important social orientation skill, was used to demonstrate the functionality of the proposed system. Ten toddlers with ASD participated in a pilot user study to show whether the system could be used on young children who have been diagnosed with ASD. Another pilot user study with 10 TD infants tested whether this system has a potential to be applied for early detection for infants who were younger than the age when ASD diagnoses can be done. This was done intentionally to separately demonstrate utility and functionality for the clinical population of interest and to demonstrate functionality beyond current clinical identification capacity (i.e., infants). The results showed that the proposed system and the protocol were well tolerated by both groups, successfully captured young children's attention, and elicited the desired behavior.
社交沟通是自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童的核心受损领域之一。社交定向训练对于改善ASD儿童的社交沟通很重要。近年来，技术辅助的ASD干预因其在精准度、可持续性、灵活性和成本方面的潜在优势而得到发展。在本文中，我们提出了一种名为ASOTS的闭环自主计算机系统，用于训练ASD幼儿的社交定向技能。该系统旨在检测和跟踪儿童对社交定向请求的注意力，并在需要时帮助儿童实现适当的社交定向。对名字的反应是一项重要的社交定向技能，用于展示所提出系统的功能。10名ASD幼儿参与了一项初步用户研究，以检验该系统是否可用于已被诊断为ASD的幼儿。另一项针对10名发育正常（TD）婴儿的初步用户研究测试了该系统是否有潜力应用于对年龄小于ASD可诊断年龄的婴儿进行早期检测。这样做是有意分别展示该系统对相关临床群体的效用和功能，并展示超出当前临床识别能力（即婴儿）的功能。结果表明，该系统和方案在两组中都有良好的耐受性，成功吸引了幼儿的注意力，并引发了预期行为。
