Quantative measures of social response for autism diagnosis

自闭症是一种广泛性发育障碍，其特征是严重的社交和沟通缺陷。自闭症是通过行为来诊断的;没有已知的血液测试，基因测试或功能成像方法可以诊断自闭症。 现有的诊断方法主要提供功能失调的社会技能的定性描述。由于需要利用早期大脑可塑性，从而最大限度地发挥干预的有益影响，因此非常需要新颖，敏感和量化的自闭症幼儿社会脆弱性测量。该项目的目标是通过提供能够产生定量，从被动和互动识别技术的社会反应的客观测量。 被动识别系统在不直接参与社交互动的情况下（例如，来自房间墙壁和天花板上的摄像机和麦克风）表征社交反应。 交互式机器人将与个人一起参与社会压力，以引起可以直接测量的社会反应。 初步数据表明，这些互动系统可以提供测量，这是免费的主观偏见，这可以根据个人的需要，并产生兴趣和动机，在许多自闭症儿童。

Autism is a pervasive developmental disorder that is characterized by a severe set of social and communicative deficits. Autism is diagnosed behaviorally; there is no known blood test, genetic test, or functional imaging method that can diagnose autism. Existing diagnostic methods provide primarily qualitative descriptions of dysfunctional social skills. Given the need to capitalize on early brain plasticity and thus maximize the beneficial impacts of intervention, there is a great need for novel, sensitive and quantified performance-based measurements of social vulnerabilities in young children with autism.The goal of this project is to enhance methods for diagnosing autism by providing technology that can produce quantitative, objective measurements of social response from both passive and interactive recognition techniques. Passive recognition systems characterize social responses without directly taking part in the social interaction (for example, from cameras and microphones in the walls and ceiling of a room). Interactive robots will engage in social presses with an individual in the interest of eliciting a social response that can be measured directly. Preliminary data shows that these interactive systems can provide measurements which are free of subjective bias, which can be tailored to the needs of an individual, and which generate interest and motivation in many children with autism.