Tepencelik Onur Necip, Wei Wenchuan, Luo Mirabel, Cosman Pamela, Dey Sujit
Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States.
Carlsbad High School, Carlsbad, CA, United States.
JMIR Form Res. 2024 Aug 12;8:e55339. doi: 10.2196/55339.
Cross-neurotype differences in social communication patterns contribute to high unemployment rates among adults with autism. Adults with autism can be unsuccessful in job searches or terminated from employment due to mismatches between their social attention behaviors and society's expectations on workplace communication.
We propose a behavioral intervention concerning distribution of attention in triadic (three-way) conversations. Specifically, the objective is to determine whether providing personalized feedback to each individual with autism based on an analysis of their attention distribution behavior during an initial conversation session would cause them to modify their orientation behavior in a subsequent conversation session.
Our system uses an unobtrusive head orientation estimation model to track the focus of attention of each individual. Head orientation sequences from a conversation session are analyzed based on five statistical domains (eg, maximum exclusion duration and average contact duration) representing different types of attention distribution behavior. An intervention is provided to a participant if they exceeded the nonautistic average for that behavior by at least 2 SDs. The intervention uses data analysis and video modeling along with a constructive discussion about the targeted behaviors. Twenty-four individuals with autism with no intellectual disabilities participated in the study. The participants were divided into test and control groups of 12 participants each.
Based on their attention distribution behavior in the initial conversation session, 11 of the 12 participants in the test group received an intervention in at least one domain. Of the 11 participants who received the intervention, 10 showed improvement in at least one domain on which they received feedback. Independent t tests for larger test groups (df>15) confirmed that the group improvements are statistically significant compared with the corresponding controls (P<.05). Crawford-Howell t tests confirmed that 78% of the interventions resulted in significant improvements when compared individually against corresponding controls (P<.05). Additional t tests comparing the first conversation sessions of the test and control groups and comparing the first and second conversation sessions of the control group resulted in nonsignificant differences, pointing to the intervention being the main effect behind the behavioral changes displayed by the test group, as opposed to confounding effects or group differences.
Our proposed behavioral intervention offers a useful framework for practicing social attention behavior in multiparty conversations that are common in social and professional settings.
社交沟通模式中的跨神经类型差异导致自闭症成年人失业率较高。自闭症成年人可能在求职过程中不成功，或因他们的社交注意力行为与社会对职场沟通的期望不匹配而被解雇。
我们提出一项关于三元（三方）对话中注意力分配的行为干预措施。具体而言，目标是确定在初始对话环节中，基于对自闭症个体注意力分配行为的分析，为其提供个性化反馈是否会使其在后续对话环节中改变其定向行为。
我们的系统使用一种不引人注意的头部定向估计模型来跟踪每个人的注意力焦点。根据代表不同类型注意力分配行为的五个统计领域（例如，最大排除持续时间和平均接触持续时间），分析对话环节中的头部定向序列。如果参与者在该行为上超过非自闭症者的平均值至少2个标准差，则对其进行干预。该干预措施使用数据分析和视频建模，以及关于目标行为的建设性讨论。24名无智力障碍的自闭症个体参与了该研究。参与者被分为测试组和对照组，每组12人。
根据他们在初始对话环节中的注意力分配行为，测试组12名参与者中有11名在至少一个领域接受了干预。在接受干预的11名参与者中，10名在他们收到反馈的至少一个领域有所改善。对更大测试组（自由度>15）进行的独立t检验证实，与相应对照组相比，该组的改善具有统计学意义（P<0.05）。克劳福德 - 豪厄尔t检验证实，与相应对照组单独比较时，78%的干预措施导致了显著改善（P<0.05）。比较测试组和对照组第一次对话环节以及比较对照组第一次和第二次对话环节的额外t检验结果无显著差异，这表明干预是测试组所表现出的行为变化背后的主要影响因素，而非混淆效应或组间差异。
我们提出的行为干预措施为在社交和专业环境中常见的多方对话中练习社交注意力行为提供了一个有用的框架。
