SBIR Phase I: Enabling Musical Creativity for People with Special Needs

这个SBIR第一阶段项目致力于制作软件，使有特殊需求的人，特别是自闭症患者，能够轻松地创作自己的音乐。广泛的证据表明，音乐可以成为残疾人情感和创造力的强大发泄渠道。多项研究表明，音乐可以帮助自闭症儿童提高他们在社交、言语交流、启动行为和社交-情感互惠方面的技能。然而，在过去的40年里，美国公众接受音乐教育的机会急剧下降。在美国，有特殊需要的660万学生面临着更多的音乐教育障碍，因为乐器课程需要大量的经济资源和要求的身体灵巧程度。在这一背景下，私营部门的创新比以往任何时候都更有必要增加音乐教育的可及性。通过提供负担得起和直观的软件，该项目有可能对经济产生重大影响，帮助降低有特殊需要的儿童、学校特殊教育计划和残疾成年人的父母的教育和医疗保健成本。同样重要的是，将音乐创意的喜悦民主化将为释放有特殊需求的人的激情、才华和生产力做出强有力的贡献。为了让有特殊需要的人更容易制作自己的音乐，这个项目将利用手势作曲、响应性设计和数据科学来制作一个软件界面，根据用户之前与程序的交互来适应他们的可访问性偏好。该项目的第二个重点是制作以自我表达和社会情感智力为重点的互动音乐课。课程将利用并扩展创意界面，引导用户创作表达心情的歌曲。将需要强大的用户测试和机器学习的智能应用，以确保界面顺利发展，使用户能够创造性。还需要进行大量的实验，以建立经验教训，在通过线性指导支持用户和授权用户做出富有表现力的决定和控制自己的情绪之间取得平衡。为了减轻项目的技术风险，将在用户测试和开发的每个阶段咨询特殊需求专家和保健专业人员。总而言之，这些创新解决了向有特殊需要的人，特别是自闭症患者开放音乐作为创造力、交流和自我表达的媒介这一重大而紧迫的挑战。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This SBIR Phase I project is dedicated to producing software that makes it easy for people with special needs, especially those on the autism spectrum, to compose their own music. A wide base of evidence shows that music can be a powerful emotional and creative outlet for people with disabilities. Multiple studies show that music can help children on the autism spectrum improve their skills in social interaction, verbal communication,initiating behavior, and social-emotional reciprocity. However, public access to music education has declined dramatically in the United States over the last 40 years. The 6.6 million students in the US with special needs face further barriers to music education because of the significant financial resources and demanding degree of physical dexterity required by instrument lessons. Within this context, private sector innovation is more necessary than ever to increase the accessibility of music education. By offering affordable and intuitive software this project has the potential to make a major impact on the economy by helping to reduce education and health care costs for parents of children with special needs, school special education programs, and adults with disabilities. Just as importantly, democratizing the joy of musical creativity will make a powerful contribution to unlocking the passion, talents, and productivity of people with special needs.To make it easy for people with special needs to make their own music, this project will employ gestural composition, responsive design, and data science to produce a software interface that adapts to a users' accessibility preferences based on their previous interactions with the program. A second focus of the project is to produce interactive music lessons focused on self-expression and socio-emotional intelligence. Lessons will utilize and expand upon the creative interface to guide users to write songs that express their mood. Robust user testing and intelligent application of machine learning will be required to ensure that the interface smoothly evolves to enable user creativity. Considerable experimentation will also be required to build lessons which strike a balance between supporting users through linear instruction and empowering users to make expressive decisions and take ownership of their emotions. To mitigate the project's technical risk special needs experts and health professionals will be consulted at every stage of user testing and development. In sum, these innovations address the significant and urgent challenge of opening music up as a medium of creativity, communication and self-expression for people with special needs, especially those on the autism spectrum.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.