HCI for Children with Special Needs: Autism

2021

Research Areas

Assistive Technology, Virtual Reality

Researchers

Bilal Arshad

EAST is an intermediary interactive tablet-based app that assists in the early detection of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) by screening preschoolers in Pakistan through play-based activities in a home, school or clinical setting. Medical professionals, parents of autistic children and teachers were surveyed through focus groups to understand the reasons that contribute to the increasing number of missed early detections, and late- or misdiagnoses. The acceptability, usability and validity of EAST were tested with both typically developed and autistic children on how they relate to people, imitation, motor skills, visual and intellectual response. The main goal of this project is to contribute towards a digital autism screening tool that delivers insights into the child’s behavior and enables collaboration among parents, teachers and medical professionals.

Arshad, M. B., Sarwar, M. F., Zaidi, M. F., & Shahid, S. (2020, April). EAST: Early Autism Screening Tool for Preschoolers. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-14).