A patient affect monitoring system for children with autism using stress levels and repetitive gestures

• Main Authors: Perez, Martin Noel T., Ramos, Brian Carlo K., Teng, Alvin Theodore B., Zamora, Jose Carlo G.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2013
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/11832
• Institution: De La Salle University

Autism is one of the more important development disorders that affect much of the worlds population. It is one of many diseases that affects the ability of an individual to learn and develop social and communication skills, a predicament that is detrimental to the overall growth of the individual as a contributing member in society. Autism has several symptoms, and among these are occurrences of bursts or repeated gestures unique to a patient in appearance and meaning. This research aims to build a monitoring system for a specific user/patient by profiling sets of gestures in relation to meaning through stress levels. This system will monitor a child during therapy, and based on the profile-model, the attending therapist can be aware of the meaning of gestures, as well as be alerted of the coming of extreme expressions before they occur. Before profiling for the system, this research first aims to build a usable model of use(patient)-specific set of gestures regarding the accompanying stress levels so as to identify if gestures are expressive of affect state in relation to stress levels, and if so, this research also intends to find out is gestures could be stereotyped to certain meaning or expressions. This research could also help in studies about repetitive motion in autism as there is no sure cause or reason for this phenomenon (although there are many theories), and whether to treat this phenomenon or not (and to what degree) can be very hard to decide because it might also be a way to better understand the patient. Gesture and stress level recognition technology (Kinect and EDA or Electrodermal Activity sensors, respectively) will be used on mildly autistic children in an occupational therapists clinic.