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

这一小企业技术转让第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是改善教育人员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，以扩大在不同的社会经济阶层和地理区域获得这种支持的机会。这些进展有可能在就业能力、教育程度和人际关系等领域为这些儿童带来有意义的生活质量改善。鉴于仅在美国就有约90万儿童患有这种疾病，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。它还具有巨大的商业潜力：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，对这样的产品有巨大的商业需求。此外，通过结合实时眼球跟踪数据来推动基于视频游戏的培训的前沿，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。拟议中的项目涉及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--这是一项重要且不断增长的需求。主要开发活动包括(1)增加多种类型的凝视控制社交技能训练练习，即针对情绪识别和联合注意力的练习；(2)采用低成本、消费级的眼球跟踪器；(3)建立自动反馈系统，以确保玩家相对于眼球跟踪器的正确定位；以及(4)改进自适应算法，以个性化游戏难度和最大限度地提高参与度。这些功能将由一个在视频游戏开发、自闭症研究和技术商业化方面拥有专业知识的不同团队设计和实施。评估将包括通过对10名参与者(50次游戏会话)的人类主题研究，对照与游戏可玩性和参与度相关的可量化衡量的成功指标来跟踪绩效。预期的结果是一款解决了多种社交技能缺陷的视频游戏，吸引了目标人群，并可以由治疗师、教育工作者和家长以经济高效的方式部署。

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.