While
the first iteration of Google Glass was scuttled in the market by concerns
about privacy, etiquette, and safety, the smart glasses may find fresh
relevance in helping children with autism spectrum disorder to socialize with
others.
A new report published in the journal npj Digital Medicine details a pilot study in
which autistic children used Superpower Glass, a prototype machine
learning-assisted app designed to run on Google Glass paired with an Android smartphone.
The app, trained from hundreds of thousands of facial images, displays an
onscreen emoticon to alert the wearer when someone with whom they’re
interacting expresses one of several core emotions, such as anger, happiness,
or surprise.
After
using this tech at home for an average of about 10 weeks, the families in the
study reported that their kids demonstrated increased eye contact and greater
ability at reading facial expressions, results that were confirmed by testing.
Anecdotally, those behavioral changes have persisted beyond the end of the
pilot.
The
researchers wrote that “our system’s ability to provide continuous behavioral
therapy outside of clinical settings will enable faster gains in social acuity,
and that within a limited and self-directed period of use, will permit the
child to engage in increasingly more complex social scenarios of his/her own.”
Additional
clinical trials are planned to validate Superpower Glass’s impact and
suitability for home behavioral therapy.
