Technology Tools for Students with Autism Book Published, Featuring Hayes and Brubaker!

The new book Technology Tools for Students with Autism: Innovations that Enhance Independence and Learning, published this month by Brookes Publishing, features two chapters authored by STAR Group members! Gillian and Jed are authors on the chapter “Using Mobile Technologies to Support Students in Work Transition Programs”, and Gillian is also an author on the […]

Dr. Hayes Headlined Recent UCInsights Conference on Autism!

Congrats to Gillian, who recently spoke at the UCInsights conference titled “The Autism Spectrum: Help and Hope” about her research on technologies for autism. STAR PhD students Sen Hirano and Kate Ringland also presented demos of their autism technologies projects, vSked and SensoryPaint.

Technologies for Autism: SensoryPaint

SensoryPaint is an interactive surface with the capability of superimposing the user’s reflection on a projected surface and “painting” this surface with balls of different textures and colors, which was designed to augment traditional therapies. This software uses a Kinect to detect the movements of the user and the balls. The user’s image is reflected on the screen, as well as their shadow superimposed on their reflection.

Autism and Technology Showcase at the Beckman Center

Many members of the STAR group (and our alumni and friends) demonstrated some awesome technologies at the Beckman Center on Saturday to nearly 150 members of the community, including parents, clinicians, teachers, therapists, other researchers, and more. The event was a great success with nearly every attendee demanding more in the future! We are looking […]

Technologies for Autism: Hygiene Helper

Proper hygiene habits are essential for the short and long-term health benefits they provide. They are also key independent living skills for full integration within modern society. A variety of books have been written on the subject, but these provide little to help prompt, remind, and instruct on a daily basis. Mobile technologies provide the […]

Technologies for Autism: ActivityCoach

For many people living with ASD, remembering detailed schedules can be challenging. However, the static representations of those schedules that are normally used as supports do not represent the dynamic nature of life. A well planned day can be disrupted by a late bus or cancelled work. ActivityCoach is a mobile application that provides dynamic […]

USC Autism and Engineering Workshop

Gillian and Khai were at USC yesterday for a national workshop of autism and engineering. The program included speakers who are experts in psychology, genetics, speech recognition, imaging, and more. Gillian also gave an overview on “Human-Centered Approaches to Technology and Autism” that covered much of the STAR lab’s work in this space. It was a […]

Technologies for Autism: Mobile Video Modeling

Video modeling has been demonstrated to support individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in learning a variety of skills.This involves watching recorded videos of others (peer modeling) or oneself (self modeling) modeling positive behavior or successfully completing a task. The ubiquitous nature of mobile technologies provides an opportunity to make video modeling more connected to the activities people are trying to accomplish.

Interactive Visual Support Technologies for Autism: vSked, Mocotos, and SenseCam

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 […]

Social Compass paper accepted to Ubicomp

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 […]