SAN
FRANCISCO — When Esaïe Prickett sat down in the living room with his mother,
father and four older brothers, he was the only one wearing Google Glass.
As Esaïe,
who was 10 at the time and is 12 now, gazed through the computerized glasses,
his family made faces — happy, sad, surprised, angry, bored — and he tried to
identify each emotion. In an instant, the glasses told him whether he was right
or wrong, flashing tiny digital icons that only he could see.
Esaïe was 6
when he and his family learned he had autism. The technology he was using while
sitting in the living room was meant to help him learn how to recognize
emotions and make eye contact with those around him. The glasses would verify
his choices only if he looked directly at a face.
He and his
family tested the technology for several weeks as part of a clinical trial run
by researchers at Stanford University in and around the San Francisco Bay Area.
Recently detailed in The Journal of the American Medical Association,
Pediatrics, the trial fits into a growing effort to build new technologies for
children on the autism spectrum, including interactive robots and computerized
eyewear.
The Stanford
study’s results show that the methods have promise and indicate that they could
help children like Esaïe understand emotions and engage in more direct ways
with those around them. They could also measure changes in behavior, something
that has historically been difficult to do.
Experts
believe that other new technologies may help in similar ways. Talking digital
assistants like Amazon’s Alexa, for example, could help children who misuse
their pronouns. But even as these ideas spread, researchers warn that they will
require rigorous testing before their effects are completely understood.
Catalin Voss
started building software for Google Glass in 2013, not long after Google
unveiled the computerized eyewear amid much hullabaloo from the national media.
An 18-year-old Stanford freshman at the time, Voss began building an
application that could automatically recognize images. Then he thought of his
cousin, who had autism.
Growing up,
Voss’ cousin practiced recognizing facial expressions while looking into a
bathroom mirror. Google Glass, Voss thought, might improve on this common
exercise. Drawing on the latest advances in computer vision, his software could
automatically read facial expressions and keep close track of when someone
recognized an emotion and when they did not.
“I was trying
to build software that could recognize faces,” Voss said. “And I knew that
there were people who struggled with that.”
At the time,
the brief moment Google Glass spent in the national spotlight was already
coming to an end. Google stopped selling the device to consumers amid concerns
that its built-in camera would compromise personal privacy.
But Google
Glass lived on as something to be used by researchers and businesses, and Voss,
now a doctoral student, spent the next several years developing his application
with Dennis Wall, a Stanford professor who specializes in autism research, and
others at the university.
Their
clinical trial, conducted over two years with 71 children, is one of the first
of its kind. It spanned everything from severe forms of autism, including
children with speech impairments and tactile sensitivities, to much milder
forms. Children who used the software in their homes showed a significant gain
on the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, a standard tool for tracking the
behavior of those on the autism spectrum, Voss said.
The gain was
in line with improvements by children who received therapy in dedicated clinics
through more traditional methods. The hope is that Voss’ application and
similar methods can help more children in more places, without regular visits
to clinics.
“It is a way
for families to, on some level, provide their own therapy,” Voss said.
Jeffrey
Prickett, Esaïe’s father, said he had been drawn to the study because he had
known it would appeal to his son, who enjoys using iPad apps and watching
movies.
“He does
fine interacting with people,” Prickett said. “But he does better interacting
with technology.”
Prickett
found it hard to judge whether the Google device helped his son recognize
emotions, but he saw a marked improvement in Esaïe’s ability to make eye
contact.
Heather
Crowhurst, who lives near Sacramento, California, said she had experienced
something similar with her 8-year-old son, Thomas, who also participated in the
trial. But Thomas was not entirely captivated with the digital therapy. “It was
kind of boring,” he said.
The concern
with such studies is that they rely on the observations of parents who are
helping their children use the technology, said Catherine Lord, a clinical
psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who specializes in
the diagnosis and treatment of autism. The parents are aware of the
technological intervention, so their observations may not be reliable.
Still, the
Stanford team considers its study a first step toward wider use of this and
other technologies in autism. It has licensed the technology to Cognoa, a
Silicon Valley startup founded by Wall. The company hopes to commercialize the
method once it receives approval from the Food and Drug Administration, which
oversees the use of medical devices in the United States. That may still be
years away.
Other
companies are taking a different approach. Brain Power, a startup in
Massachusetts that has built similar software for Google Glass, is selling its
technology to local schools. The company considers it a teaching tool, not a
medical device.
Patrick
Daly, assistant superintendent of the school district in North Reading,
Massachusetts, is testing Brain Power’s technology after watching its effect on
his 9-year-old son, who is on the spectrum. The district intends to test the
technology over the next few years.
Previously,
the district tried to teach similar skills through iPad computer tablets. Daly
sees Google Glass as a big improvement.
“It can
actually maintain eye contact,” he said. “They are not looking down while they
try to learn an emotion.”
Robokind, a
startup in Dallas, applies the same philosophy to different hardware. The
company spent the past several years designing a robot that attempts to teach
many of the same skills as technologies built for digital eyewear. Called Milo,
the doll-like, 2-foot-tall robot mimics basic emotions and tries to make eye
contact with students. It also asks questions and tries to engage students in
simple conversations.
Robokind has
sold hundreds of the robots to schools for testing. Each one costs $12,000,
plus more than $3,500 for additional software.
In some ways,
such a device is a poor substitute for real human interaction. But the strength
of this and other technologies is that they can repeat tasks time and again,
without getting tired or bored or angry. They can also measure behavior in
precise ways, said Pam Feliciano, scientific director of the nonprofit Simons
Foundation Powering Autism Research.
For these
reasons, Feliciano also sees promise in Amazon’s Alexa. Her 14-year-old son is
on the spectrum and struggles with his pronouns. He sometimes calls himself
“you,” not “I.”
Her task is
to correct him each time he makes a mistake. But she’s human and gets tired.
She does not always remember. A device like Alexa could help, she said,
provided that researchers can show it is reliable and effective.
“The technologies
are there,” she said. “It is just a matter of the right technologists working
with the right clinicians.”
Source | Financial Express | 22nd
July 2019
No comments:
Post a Comment