Evaluation of a novel tablet/game-based diagnostic support tool for the early detection of autism

自闭症谱系障碍影响了英国2%的儿童和全球1%的人口。ASD儿童需要教育、医疗和社会系统的持续支持。这相当于每年31亿英镑。每个家庭的终身支持费用为100万英镑，早期诊断可以显著改善患者的长期预后，并减少持续的系统和家庭支持费用-通过使早期干预成为可能。然而，于2020/2021财政年度第四季度，78%转介接受自闭症评估的儿童并无首次预约记录。只有12%的人在13周内开始了评估过程。当自闭症儿童的父母被问及他们的经历时，他们说：“[我]不得不忍受所有的争吵和战斗，花了4年的时间才得到诊断，”和“我觉得如果我们没有推过老师去做评估......我的两个孩子很容易就被忽视了“这些挑战的存在部分是因为：（即女性自闭症表型）;在报告ASD问题方面存在种族/种族差异，导致某些群体的诊断较晚;由于需求的增长，公共卫生服务存在瓶颈。作为一家小型，经验丰富，可信和值得信赖的技术公司，通过一种创新的医疗设备，帮助ASD的早期诊断和对患者的持续监测，Alterlob满足了患者和医疗服务提供者的需求。Alterlob的设备集成了新颖的神经心理学任务，沉浸式技术和机器学习，是一种高度敏感的诊断支持工具。从长远来看，它旨在通过改善ASD评估的可访问性来应对现有的医疗挑战;实现远程监控;提高诊断灵敏度，从而改善儿童的预后。该工具将有可能减少68%的公共医疗成本和84%的私人患者成本。该技术正在与患者焦点小组共同开发，该工具的可行性已经在北伦敦一所学校的SEND（特殊教育需求和残疾中心）得到证实。为了进入技术准备的下一阶段，我们现在必须进行初步的技术评估。该项目旨在建立评估性能的基线，检查其心理测量特性，并探索其作为发现ASD生物标志物的工具的实用性。

Autism spectrum disorders affect 2% of children across the UK, and 1% of the global population. Children with ASD require ongoing support from educational, healthcare and social systems. This amounts to £3.1 billion each year. Per family, lifelong support costs are £1 million.Earlier diagnoses can significantly improve long-term outcomes for patients and reduce ongoing systemic and familial support costs -- by making it possible to introduce interventions earlier. However, 78% of children referred for autism assessments did not have a first appointment recorded in Q4 FY2020/2021\. Only 12% began the assessment process within 13 weeks.When parents of children with ASD are asked about their experiences, they say: "\[I\] had to put up with all the fights and battles and it took 4 years for a diagnosis," and "I feel if we had not pushed past the teacher to get an assessment done... both of my kids could have fallen through the cracks quite easily."These challenges exist in part because: there are differences in the behavioural expression of autism due to sex (i.e. the female autism phenotype); ethnic/racial disparities in reporting concerns about ASD leading to later diagnosis in some groups; and bottlenecks exist within public health services due to rising demand.As a small, experienced, credible and trusted technology company, Brightlobe meets the needs of patients and healthcare providers through an innovative medical device that facilitates earlier diagnosis of ASD and continuous monitoring of patients.Brightlobe's device integrates novel neuropsychological tasks, immersive technologies and machine learning for a highly-sensitive diagnostic support tool. Long-term, it is designed to meet the existing healthcare challenge by improving accessibility to ASD assessments; enabling remote monitoring; and enhancing diagnostic sensitivity thereby improving outcomes for the child.This tool will potentially reduce associated public healthcare costs by 68% and private patient costs by 84%.The technology is being co-developed with patient focus groups, leading UK/US developmental-behavioural paediatricians and commercial partners.The feasibility of the tool has already been confirmed alongside a SEND (special educational needs and disabilities centre) in a North London school. To move into the next stage of technology readiness, we must now conduct a preliminary technical evaluation.This project is designed to establish a baseline for performance on the assessment, examines its psychometric properties, and explore its utility as a tool to discover biomarkers for ASD.