Project: Visual schedules and choice boards are tools used in current best practices for helping children with autism and other special needs. These non-verbal kids need help communicating their choices, understanding time and activities, and so on. We are working with Windows SmartPhone, Linux small displays, and large touchscreen-enabled platforms to develop solutions that ease these burdens, provide logging and visualizations of data, and help automate some of the features of using these communication techniques.

We are also investigating how novel recording technologies, like the Microsoft SenseCam can be used to augment communication between non-verbal children with autism and their caregivers – including both parents and teachers.

Watch a talk Gillian gave at Microsoft Research that covers some of the autism and FitBaby work:  http://research.microsoft.com/apps/video/default.aspx?id=121512

This work is supported in part by technical assistance and equipment through a collaboration with Microsoft Reserach Cambdridge.

This work is supported by AutismSpeaks Innovative Technologies For Autism program, a generous equipment donation from Nokia Research Palo Alto, and an NSF CAREER award.

The vSked and SenseCam for Autism projects will be presented at IMFAR 2008 in Chicago.

This work was presented at IDC as a poster at the main conference and at the Design for Children with Special Needs Workshop:

The vSked and SenseCam for Autism projects will be presented at IMFAR this year in Chicago.

This work was presented at IDC as a poster at the main conference and at the Design for Children with Special Needs Workshop:

vSked: Interactive Visual Scheduling Systems
Gillian R. Hayes
David Nguyen
Michael Yeganyan
Sen Hirano
Gabriela Marcu

SenseCam
Gillian R. Hayes
Gabriela Marcu

Mocotos:  Mobile Communications Tools for Children with Special Needs
Mohamad Monibi
Gillian R. Hayes

Interactive and Intelligent Visual Communication Systems
Gillian R. Hayes
Donald J. Patterson
Mohamad Monibi
Sam Kaufman

This work was also presented at the International Meeting for Autism Research as a poster:

Design of Interactive Visual Scheduling Systems
Sam Kaufman
Donald J. Patterson
Gillian R. Hayes

Our paper on the design of a mobile tool based on the Social Compass Curriculum was accepted for publication at this year’s Ubicomp conference. The citation and abstract are below…. look for the camera ready version of the paper to show up on our publications page as soon as it is done.

Tentori, M. and Hayes, G.R. Designing for Interaction Immediacy
to Enhance Social Skills of Children with Autism To Appear Proc Ubicomp 2010. Copenhagen, Denmark. September 26-29, 2010.

Abstract:

Children with autism often require therapeutic interventions to support engagement in effective social interactions in different contexts. In this paper, we present the results of a study conducted in three public schools that use an educational and behavioral intervention for the instruction of social skills in changing situational contexts and ongoing social interactions. The results of this study led to the concept of interaction immediacy to help children maintain appropriate spatial boundaries, reply to conversation initiators, disengage appropriately at the end of an interaction, and identify potential communication partners. We describe design principles for Ubicomp technologies to support interaction immediacy and present an example design. The contribution of this work is twofold. First, we present an understanding of social skills in mobile and dynamic contexts. Second, we introduce the concept of interaction immediacy and show its effectiveness as a guiding principle for the design of Ubicomp applications.

vSked: An Interactive Visual Schedule System for use in Classrooms for Children with Autism
Michael T. Yeganyan, Meg Cramer, Lou Anne Boyd and Gillian R. Hayes

Children with autism often experience substantial challenges in understanding, structuring, and predicting the activities in their daily lives. The use of symbols to represent a series of activities, also known as visual schedules, have been shown to be an effective intervention technique for helping individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder. In this paper, we describe the design and technical architecture for vSked, an interactive visual scheduling tool that allows group interactivity with content generated through end-user programming. We also outline a scenario that demonstrates how vSked extends the benefits of traditional visual schedules through both interactivity and automatic logging of use. This scenario also indicates the type of experience a user might have during a demonstration session.

Personal and Ubiquitous Computing

Call for Papers:  Theme Issue on Technologies for Autism

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), also known as Pervasive Development Disorder, includes impairments in social interaction, communication—both verbal and non-verbal—and stereotypical or repeated behavior, interests and activities. A recent report by the Centers for Disease Control using data from the United States in 2006 indicated a rise in prevalence of ASD to 1 in 110 children: 1 in 70 boys and 1 in 310 girls.  Individuals across the Spectrum can potentially benefit from the use of novel computing technologies, including assistive and augmentative technologies, social computational systems, sensing and context-aware systems, capture and access applications, wearable systems, and more.

This special issue calls for original research and methodology papers on the integration of personal and ubiquitous computing technologies in support of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The purpose of this special issue is to bring together a set of research papers that will (1) advance our understanding of technologies for autism, (2) discuss the role of technology in supporting individuals with ASD, their friends and families, and (3) provide examples of effective technologies for autism. Through this special issue, we hope to bring together a diverse set of researchers working in autism, pediatrics, computer science, cognitive science, education, sociology, psychology, anthropology, information science, and more.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

* Empirical studies exploring issues related to autism that might be amenable to technological intervention;

* Empirical studies of technologies in use to support individuals with ASD;

* Methodologies for conducting research on technologies for autism;

* New designs and technologies that support individuals with ASD, their friends, relatives, co-workers, and acquaintances;

* Evaluation techniques for technologies for autism;

* Case studies on the deployment and long-term use of technologies for autism.

Important Dates:

* Papers to be submitted: August 16, 2010

* Peer reviews completed: November 16, 2010

* Revisions completed and submitted: January 1, 2011

* Publication date: March/April 2011

Length of the paper: 15-30 manuscript pages (double spaced)

Guest Editors:

* Gillian Hayes, University of California, Irvine

* Karrie Karahalios, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

To submit your paper, please email it in PDF format to gillianrh@ics.uci.edu and kkarahal@cs.uiuc.edu

Information about Journal of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing

Editor-in-Chief: Peter Thomas

Journal web site: http://www.springer.com/computer/hci/journal/779

http://www.facebook.com/personalubicomp

Interactive Visual Supports for Children with Autism

Gillian R. Hayes, Sen Hirano, Gabriela Marcu, Mohamad Monibi, David H. Nguyen, and Michael Yeganyan

Interventions to support children with autism often include the use of visual supports, which are cognitive tools to enable learning and the production of language. Although visual supports are effective in helping to diminish many of the challenges of autism, they are difficult and time-consuming to create, distribute, and use. In this paper, we present the results of a qualitative study focused on uncovering design guidelines for interactive visual supports that would address the many challenges inherent to current tools and practices. We present three prototype systems that address these design challenges with the use of large group displays, mobile personal devices, and personal recording technologies. We also describe the interventions associated with these prototypes along with the results from two focus group discussions around the interventions. We present further design guidance for visual supports and discuss tensions inherent to their design.

The STAR group will be busy at WISH this year with five posters!  We are really looking forward to an amazing event.

Attitudes and Readiness for Adoption of an Electronic Medical Records System: A Preliminary Case Study
- Jed Brubaker, Yunan Chen, Karen Cheng, Chris Combs, Sheba George, Sidney Harrison, Gillian Hayes, Sherrie Kaplan

Heuristic Evaluation of Personal Health Records Systems
– Leslie Liu and Gillian Hayes

Sentient displays to connect people with cognitive disabilities to the digital era of social interaction
- Monica Tentori, Raymundo Cornejo, Jesus Favel

FitBaby: Using Observations of Daily Living to Improve the Health of Preterm Infants and Their Caregivers
- Gillian Hayes, Karen Cheng, Sen Hirano, Sunyoung Park, Dana Gravem, Julia Rich, Dan Cooper

Use of a Wearable Recording Device in Therapeutic Interventions for Children with Autism
- Gabriela Marcu and Gillian Hayes

vSked:  Evaluation of a System to Support Classroom Activities for Children with Autism by Sen Hirano, Michael Yeganyan, Gabriela Marcu, David Nguyen, and Gillian Hayes accepted for CHI 2010.

Visual schedules—the use of symbols to represent a series of activities or steps—have been successfully used by caregivers to help children with autism to understand, structure, and predict activities in their daily lives. We conducted in-depth fieldwork and participatory design sessions, through which we developed vSked, an interactive and collaborative visual scheduling system designed for elementary school classrooms. We evaluated vSked in situ in one autism-specific classroom over three weeks.  In this paper, we present the design principles, technical solution, and results from this successful deployment. Use of vSked resulted in reductions in staff effort required to use visual supports. vSked also resulted in improvements in the perceived quality and quantity of communication and social interactions in the classroom.

Congratulations to Sam, Don, and Gillian on having their abstract accepted to IMFAR 2008: “Design of Interactive and Collaborative Visual Scheduling Systems”

Abstract: Visual schedules are effective tools for supporting children with autism in understanding, structuring, and predicting activities. However, visual schedules can be difficult and time-consuming for caregivers to employ effectively, because caregivers must ensure the visual aids match volatile schedules. Technology-enhanced visual schedules have the capabilities to ease both the use of these aids and the data collection of activities in classrooms.

Professor of informatics Gillian Hayes has received an $83,563 award from Autism Speaks for her proposal, “Technology Support for Interactive and Collaborative Visual Schedules”.

This work will focus on developing a digital repository and visual schedule system for use in schools and homes by individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Using visual schedules, such as words, images and tangible objects to represent activities that will take place (or have taken place) has been shown to reduce the symptoms associated with autism. Using the smart visual schedules system, caregivers can generate reports, share information with one another, and possibly even update an individual schedule at a distance as circumstances change.

Autism Speaks is a New York City-based advocacy organization, founded in February 2005 by Bob Wright, Vice Chairman of General Electric, and his wife Suzanne, to improve public awareness about autism and to promote autism research.

The Wrights founded Autism Speaks to help find a cure for autism spectrum disorders a year after their grandson, Christian, was diagnosed with autism.

CareLog: A Selective Archiving Tool for Behavior Management in Schools was just accepted for CHI 2008

Abstract: Identifying the function of problem behavior can lead to the development of more effective interventions. One way to identify the function is through functional behavior assessment (FBA). Teachers conduct FBA in schools. However, the task load of recording the data manually is high, and the challenge of accurately identifying antecedents and consequences is significant while interacting with students. These issues often result in imperfect information capture. CareLog allows teachers more easily to conduct FBAs and enhances the capture of relevant information. In this paper, we describe the design process that led to five design principles that governed the development of CareLog. We present results from a five-month, quasi-controlled study aimed at validating those design principles. We reflect on how various constraints imposed by special education settings impact the design and evaluation process for HCI practitioners and researchers.