Autistic Children could use Google Glass App to Boost Social Skills

The application for the wearable technology may also assist these kids in improving the ability to communicate.

Brain Power, a startup based in Massachusetts, is now in the process of developing an app for Google Glass that will assist autistic children in being able to learn both communication and social skills.

The Glass app would also offer caregivers some vital feedback about how they can help the autistic child to cope in life.

The Google Glass app is called the Empowered Brain Suite for Autism, and it works by encouraging children to interact with their parents. It also supports the use of eye contact through games that can be played. The developer of the app, Ned T. Sahin, is a neuroscientist who explained that this wearable technology headband comes with a specific advantage for children with autism, as it keeps them connected with the real world and with the other members of their families.

There are “social engagement module monitors” worked into the Google Glass app to provide assessments of the child.

These help to be able to determine how well a child has managed to engage with his or her parents, particularly in the area of eye contact and looking at the face of the parent. The software from Brain Power assists children in being better able to interpret the expressions of the family members by way of a range of different exercises and games.

The app will later be able to offer children the ability to receive personalized conversation and language coaching. Sahin explained that the very nature of Google Glass is highly compatible with the type of format required to assist children with autism as it includes an accelerometer chip that makes it possible for Brain Power to track head gestures so that it can record when a child has or has not looked at his or her parents.

The primary development of Brain Power has been focused on children who have moderate to high-functioning autism. That said, they have stated that this app for Google Glass will be expanded over time in order to include assistance for other children, as well. This, according to the news report that was issued to announce and describe the application.



Source: QR Code Press , 1st Jan 2015