STTR Phase I: An immersive gaze-controlled video game to help children on the autism spectrum improve their eye contact, emotion recognition, and joint attention skills

这项小型企业技术转移（STTR）第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是改善教育工作者和治疗师向自闭症儿童（以及受其他社交技能障碍影响的儿童）教授社交技能的方式，并提供成本效益，从而扩大不同社会经济阶层和地理区域获得此类支持的机会。这些进步有可能在就业能力、受教育程度和人际关系等方面为这些儿童带来有意义的生活质量改善。考虑到仅在美国就有大约90万儿童患有自闭症，而且近年来诊断率一直在上升，这项技术具有巨大的影响潜力。它也有巨大的商业潜力：美国特殊教育和治疗市场估计超过80亿美元，治疗师和教育工作者的反馈表明，这样的产品有巨大的商业需求。此外，通过整合实时眼动追踪数据，推动基于视频游戏的训练的前沿，拟议中的项目将扩大对视频游戏如何用于塑造人类行为的科学和技术理解。拟议中的项目包括进一步开发和评估一款旨在帮助自闭症儿童提高社交技能的视频游戏。一个重要的和不断增长的需求。重点发展活动包括：(1)增加多种类型的注视控制社交技能训练，即针对情绪识别和共同注意的训练；(2)采用低成本的消费级眼动仪；(3)建立自动反馈系统，确保玩家相对于眼动仪的正确定位；(4)改进自适应算法以个性化游戏难度并最大化用户粘性。这些功能将由一个具有视频游戏开发、自闭症研究和技术商业化专业知识的多元化团队设计和实施。评估将包括通过对10名参与者（50个游戏回合）的人类主题研究，追踪与游戏可玩性和粘性相关的可量化成功指标的表现。期望的结果是一款电子游戏能够解决多种社交技能缺陷，吸引目标人群，并且可以被治疗师，教育者和家长以一种经济有效的方式部署。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project is to improve the way educators and therapists teach social skills to children who are on the autism spectrum (as well as those affected by other social skills disorders) and deliver cost efficiencies that could expand access to such support across diverse socioeconomic classes and geographical regions. These advances have potential to produce meaningful quality-of-life improvements for these children in areas such as employability, educational attainment, and personal relationships. Given that there are ~900K children on the spectrum in the US alone, and that the rate of diagnosis has been rising in recent years, the technology has significant potential for impact. It also has significant commercial potential: the US special education and therapy market is estimated at over 8 billion dollars, and feedback from therapists and educators has indicated significant commercial demand for a product like this. In addition, by pushing the frontiers of video game-based training by incorporating real-time eye tracking data, the proposed project will expand scientific and technological understanding of how video games can be used to shape human behavior.The proposed project involves furthering the development and evaluation of a video game designed to help children on the autism spectrum improve their social skills?a significant and growing need. Key development activities include (1) adding multiple types of gaze-controlled social skill training exercises, namely those targeting emotion recognition and joint attention; (2) incorporating a low-cost, consumer-grade eye tracker; (3) building an automated feedback system to ensure proper player positioning relative to the eye tracker; and (4) refining adaptive algorithms to personalize game difficulty and maximize engagement. These features will be designed and implemented by a diverse team with expertise in video game development, autism research, and technology commercialization. Evaluation will consist of tracking performance against quantitatively measurable success metrics related to game playability and engagement via human subject research across 10 participants (50 gameplay sessions). The expected result is a video game that addresses multiple social skill deficits, engages the target demographic, and can be deployed by therapists, educators, and parents in a cost-effective manner.