Abstract
Background Recent advances in computer vision and wearable technology have created an opportunity
to introduce mobile therapy systems for autism spectrum disorders (ASD) that can respond
to the increasing demand for therapeutic interventions; however, feasibility questions
must be answered first.
Objective We studied the feasibility of a prototype therapeutic tool for children with ASD
using Google Glass, examining whether children with ASD would wear such a device,
if providing the emotion classification will improve emotion recognition, and how
emotion recognition differs between ASD participants and neurotypical controls (NC).
Methods We ran a controlled laboratory experiment with 43 children: 23 with ASD and 20 NC.
Children identified static facial images on a computer screen with one of 7 emotions
in 3 successive batches: the first with no information about emotion provided to the
child, the second with the correct classification from the Glass labeling the emotion,
and the third again without emotion information. We then trained a logistic regression
classifier on the emotion confusion matrices generated by the two information-free
batches to predict ASD versus NC.
Results All 43 children were comfortable wearing the Glass. ASD and NC participants who completed
the computer task with Glass providing audible emotion labeling (n = 33) showed increased accuracies in emotion labeling, and the logistic regression
classifier achieved an accuracy of 72.7%. Further analysis suggests that the ability
to recognize surprise, fear, and neutrality may distinguish ASD cases from NC.
Conclusion This feasibility study supports the utility of a wearable device for social affective
learning in ASD children and demonstrates subtle differences in how ASD and NC children
perform on an emotion recognition task.
Keywords
autism spectrum disorder - pilot projects - wearable device and body area network
- artificial intelligence - emotion recognition - pediatrics - people with disabilities
or special needs
