V-Motive: System for Comprehensive Therapy-Integrated Video Modeling

 描述(由申请人提供)：这一快速通道SBIR将产生一种名为V-Motive的新型软件系统，它将促进两种经过验证的自闭症行为干预措施的结合：应用行为分析疗法(ABA)和视频建模(VM)。V-Motive将有可能改变ABA治疗的执行方式，使治疗提供者能够在ABA治疗过程中以全面的方式利用VM。ABA疗法是目前最常用的自闭症干预疗法，其特点是重复的离散试验，在试验中干预者提示儿童诱导期望的行为或在逐渐获得目标技能的过程中执行步骤(Myers，2007)。VM是一种补充技术，对自闭症儿童特别有效，在这种技术中，儿童被指示模仿他们在演示视频中看到的他们想要获得的行为或技能(Dorwick，1991)。ABA疗法和VM都得到了广泛的研究，并被国家标准项目(国家自闭症中心，2010年)视为循证干预措施。研究表明，在ABA疗法中使用VM可以加速儿童的进步，特别是当儿童正在努力掌握特定的目标时(Freeman，2000)。如果视频中的主题是儿童自己在较早的日期正确地表演技能，这一点尤其正确；这被称为视频自我建模(VSM)(Wert，2003)。然而，在实践中，VM和VSM很少在ABA治疗中以综合的方式使用，因为创建和维护与客户个性化课程中包含的步骤紧密匹配的视频库是不切实际的。即使有匹配的视频可用，找到正确的视频点播，然后将其提示到正确的时间点，通常需要干预者花费大量的时间和精力，从而扰乱治疗过程的流程。V-Motive将克服这一障碍，使干预者能够利用他们正在进行的治疗会话来生成定制的视频存储库，这些视频存储库是围绕他们客户的独特课程建立的。通过与现有的基于平板电脑的ABA治疗管理产品接口，拟议的V-Motive系统将自动索引在被动录制的治疗过程中获得的原始素材，并将索引的素材上传到云中的视频存储和回放系统。在随后的会议中，V-Motive将显示可用视频剪辑的缩略图，这些视频剪辑描述了每个正在工作的目标过去的成功表现，干预者可以根据需要为儿童播放这些视频剪辑，并自动提示到适当的时间点。这项研究的长期目标是开发一种可供干预者使用的新型工具，以通过他们的 ABA课程通过利用循证技术，以前由于使用现有方法练习这些技术所需的额外劳动力而在全面范围内是不可行的。通过加速儿童的进步(即使是一小部分)，我们的系统将允许治疗提供者将他们的服务扩展到更多有需要的儿童。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This fast-track SBIR will result in a new type of software system, called V-Motive, which will facilitate the combination of two proven autism behavioral interventions: Applied Behavior Analysis therapy (ABA) and Video Modeling (VM). V-Motive will have the potential to change how ABA therapy is performed by making it feasible for therapy providers to leverage VM in a comprehensive fashion within ABA therapy sessions. ABA therapy is currently the most-prescribed autism intervention, characterized by repetitive discrete trials in which an interventionist prompts the child to elicit desired behaviors or to perform steps within the gradual acquisition of target skills (Myers, 2007). VM is a complementary technique that is particularly effective in children with autism, in which children are instructed to imitate what they see in demonstration videos of the desired behaviors or skills to be acquired (Dorwick, 1991). Both ABA therapy and VM have been extensively researched and deemed evidence-based interventions by the National Standards Project (National Autism Center, 2010). Studies have shown that use of VM within ABA therapy can accelerate a child's progress, especially when a child is struggling to master a particular target (Freeman, 2000). This is especially true if the subject in the video is the child himself performing the skill corretly at an earlier date; this is known as video self-modeling (VSM) (Wert, 2003). However, in practice, VM and VSM are rarely used in a comprehensive fashion within ABA therapy, because it is impractical to create and maintain libraries of videos that closely match the steps comprisin their clients' individualized curriculums. Even when matching videos are available, finding the right video on demand and then cueing it up to the correct time point normally requires a significant amount of time and effort on the part of the interventionist, disrupting the flow of th therapy session. V-Motive will overcome this barrier by making it feasible for interventionists to leverage their ongoing therapy sessions to generate custom video repositories that are built around the unique curriculums of their clients. By interfacing with existing tablet-based ABA therapy management products, the proposed V-Motive system will automatically index raw footage obtained during passively-taped therapy sessions, and upload the indexed footage to a video storage and playback system in the cloud. During subsequent sessions, V-Motive will show thumbnails of available video clips depicting successful past performance of each target being worked on, which the interventionist can play for the child on demand, cued to the appropriate time point automatically. The long term goal of this research is to develop a new type of tool that can be wielded by interventionists to accelerate a child's progress through their ABA curriculum by leveraging evidence-based techniques which were previously unfeasible on a comprehensive scale due to the added labor required to practice those techniques using existing methods. By accelerating a child's progress (even by a small fraction), our system will allow therapy providers to extend their services to a greater number of children in need.