After Son's Diagnosis, Engineer Begins Inventing Autism Therapy Technologies
From: Medical Design Technology - 01/26/2016

Working with UK researchers in the colleges of Education, Arts and Sciences,
and Medicine, Sen-Ching (Samson) Cheung, an associate professor in the
University of Kentucky College of Engineering's Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering and a faculty member within the UK Center for
Visualization and Virtual Environments, applied for and received a multi-year
$800,000 grant from the National Science Foundation in 2012 to enhance the
delivery of behavior therapy to individuals with autism and related
disorders. In the three years since receiving the award, Cheung has not only
developed therapy technologies for children, but also aids for the therapists
and teachers who work with the children.

The training mechanisms Cheung and his group have produced employ interactive
gaming, wearable technology and even new approaches to surveillance. They
also tap into well-known devices like Google Glass and Microsoft Kinect.
Although each is in a different stage of development, Cheung says reception
within the autism community has been positive.

LittleHelper, which uses Google Glass, is designed to strengthen those social
skills by giving immediate visual feedback in training sessions. Because
wearing Google Glass is similar to wearing glasses, it has the advantage of
being unobtrusive.

Using Google Glass's camera and peripheral display, LittleHelper detects
whether a user is looking at his or her conversation partner. If they are
maintaining what is technically termed "eye gaze," they will see a yellow
happy face in the display. If they break eye gaze, feedback comes in the form
of a frowning red face. Because many autistic children are visual learners,
they are likely to turn back to their partner in order to once again see the
happy face. A similar program offered by LittleHelper gives feedback of
"SOFTER" or "LOUDER" on the display depending on the user’s speaking volume
relative to the noise level in the room.

MEBook is part story book, part interactive game that helps autistic kids
learn the social skills of saying "hi" and "bye." While such responses come
almost automatically from most children, Cheung says they do not come
naturally from children with autism.

Read the entire article at:
http://www.mdtmag.com/news/2016/01/after-sons-diagnosis-engineer-begins-inventing-autism-therapy-technologies

Links:
Littlehelper: Using Google Glass to Assist Individuals with Autism in Job
  Interviews
https://imfar.confex.com/imfar/2015/webprogram/Paper19529.html

MEBook: Kinect-based Self-modeling Intervention for Children with Autism
http://www.vis.uky.edu/~cheung/doc/ICME2015.pdf

Samson Cheung
http://www.vis.uky.edu/~cheung

Samson Cheung Awarded NSF Grant for Autism Therapy Research
http://vis.uky.edu/blog/2012/09/14/samson-cheung-awarded-nsf-grant-for-autism-therapy-research

Multimedia Information Analysis (MIA) Laboratory
http://vis.uky.edu/mialab/research

Related:
Could Robots Help Unlock the Mystery of Autism Spectrum Disorder?
http://www.mdtmag.com/news/2015/10/could-robots-help-unlock-mystery-autism-spectrum-disorder

New App Will Help People with Autism Influence Tech Developments
http://www.mdtmag.com/news/2015/10/new-app-will-help-people-autism-influence-tech-developments

Head-Mounted VR Could Help Autistic People Learn Social Skills, Develop Employment Opportunities
http://www.mdtmag.com/news/2015/11/head-mounted-vr-could-help-autistic-people-learn-social-skills-develop-employment-opportunities