SynApps: Children’s ASD Management Through A Mobile Application and An Interactive Biofeedback Exercise

This thesis explores how to provide better access to alternative treatment options through an immersive biofeedback exercise and mobile application for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). This thesis also seeks to connect children with ASD to medical professionals and treatment facilities. This is done through a motion graphics piece depicting an abdominal breathing exercise and correlating mobile application. Users participate in biofeedback exercises in which their real-time biofeedback is monitored, transmitted to the mobile application, and reflected to the user. The mobile application analyzes and identifies physiological signals and detects what feedback is most useful to help the individual meet goals of increased vagal tones. Increased vagal tones correlates with high frequency heart rate variability. The game promotes self-awareness and self-regulation through abdominal breathing, heart rate variability, and mindfulness. If done consistently, biofeedback exercises may help re-train the body’s response to stressful situations, leading to function and behavioral improvements in everyday life. Additionally, this treatment application aims to be a preventative health option for children with ASD as a means to hopefully diminish the lifetime costs of care. This topic is important to the field of design and the broader community because it utilizes the power of design, motion, and interactive technology to potentially bring about improvements to the lives of children with ASD. Furthermore, this thesis unifies design with science as a means to bring better health care access and support services to people with ASD

Annual research review: Digital health interventions for children and young people with mental health problems: a systematic and meta-review

Digital health interventions (DHIs), including computer-assisted therapy, smartphone apps and wearable technologies, are heralded as having enormous potential to improve uptake and accessibility, efficiency, clinical effectiveness and personalisation of mental health interventions. It is generally assumed that DHIs will be preferred by children and young people (CYP) given their ubiquitous digital activity. However, it remains uncertain whether: DHIs for CYP are clinically and cost-effective, CYP prefer DHIs to traditional services, DHIs widen access and how they should be evaluated and adopted by mental health services. This review evaluates the evidence-base for DHIs and considers the key research questions and approaches to evaluation and implementation. We conducted a meta-review of scoping, narrative, systematic or meta-analytical reviews investigating the effectiveness of DHIs for mental health problems in CYP. We also updated a systematic review of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of DHIs for CYP published in the last 3 years. Twenty-one reviews were included in the meta-review. The findings provide some support for the clinical benefit of DHIs, particularly computerised cognitive behavioural therapy (cCBT), for depression and anxiety in adolescents and young adults. The systematic review identified 30 new RCTs evaluating DHIs for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, anxiety, depression, psychosis, eating disorders and PTSD. The benefits of DHIs in managing ADHD, autism, psychosis and eating disorders are uncertain, and evidence is lacking regarding the cost-effectiveness of DHIs. Key methodological limitations make it difficult to draw definitive conclusions from existing clinical trials of DHIs. Issues include variable uptake and engagement with DHIs, lack of an agreed typology/taxonomy for DHIs, small sample sizes, lack of blinded outcome assessment, combining different comparators, short-term follow-up and poor specification of the level of human support. Research and practice recommendations are presented that address the key research questions and methodological issues for the evaluation and clinical implementation of DHIs for CYP

Smartphone Apps in the Context of Tinnitus: Systematic Review

Smartphones containing sophisticated high-end hardware and offering high computational capabilities at extremely manageable costs have become mainstream and an integral part of users' lives. Widespread adoption of smartphone devices has encouraged the development of many smartphone applications, resulting in a well-established ecosystem, which is easily discoverable and accessible via respective marketplaces of differing mobile platforms. These smartphone applications are no longer exclusively limited to entertainment purposes but are increasingly established in the scientific and medical field. In the context of tinnitus, the ringing in the ear, these smartphone apps range from relief, management, self-help, all the way to interfacing external sensors to better understand the phenomenon. In this paper, we aim to bring forth the smartphone applications in and around tinnitus. Based on the PRISMA guidelines, we systematically analyze and investigate the current state of smartphone apps, that are directly applied in the context of tinnitus. In particular, we explore Google Scholar, CiteSeerX, Microsoft Academics, Semantic Scholar for the identification of scientific contributions. Additionally, we search and explore Google’s Play and Apple's App Stores to identify relevant smartphone apps and their respective properties. This review work gives (1) an up-to-date overview of existing apps, and (2) lists and discusses scientific literature pertaining to the smartphone apps used within the context of tinnitus

Technology-based ADHD therapies and alternative non-drug options

Since so many studies have been conducted over the past ten years, we now have ample information about the profile and management of ADHD. Children with ADHD frequently struggle in school and with their attitude because of issues with cognitive and metacognitive skills. Due to inadequate management and interventions, it frequently happens that they are marginalized at school or the home. The development of these children’s emotional intelligence and abilities like self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-control is crucial for enhancing their life quality and their interactions with adults and peers. Medication, behavior modification, or a combination of the two are typically used to treat ADHD. The efficacy of behavioral therapies is examined in this research, in addition to the use of recent technology for treating ADHD

A review and framework for designing interactive technologies for emotion regulation training

Emotion regulation is foundational to mental health and well-being. In the last ten years there has been an increasing focus on the use of interactive technologies to support emotion regulation training in a variety of contexts. However, research has been done in diverse fields, and no cohesive framework exists that explicates what features of such system are important to consider, guidance on how to design these features, and what remains unknown, which should be explored in future design research. To address this gap, this thesis presents the results of a descriptive review of 54 peer-reviewed papers. Through qualitative and frequency analysis I analyzed previous technologies, reviewed their theoretical foundations, the opportunities where they appear to provide unique benefits, and their conceptual and usability challenges. Based on the findings I synthesized a design framework that presents the main concepts and design considerations that researchers and designers may find useful in designing future technologies in the context of emotion regulation training

Empowering children with ASD and their parents : design of a serious game for anxiety and stress reduction

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by social interaction difficulties and communication difficulties. Moreover, children with ASD often suffer from other co-morbidities, such as anxiety and depression. Finding appropriate treatment can be difficult as symptoms of ASD and co-morbidities often overlap. Due to these challenges, parents of children with ASD often suffer from higher levels of stress. This research aims to investigate the feasibility of empowering children with ASD and their parents through the use of a serious game to reduce stress and anxiety and a supporting parent application. The New Horizon game and the SpaceControl application were developed together with therapists and according to guidelines for e-health patient empowerment. The game incorporates two mini-games with relaxation techniques. The performance of the game was analyzed and usability studies with three families were conducted. Parents and children were asked to fill in the Spence's Children Anxiety Scale (SCAS) and Spence Children Anxiety Scale-Parents (SCAS-P) anxiety scale. The game shows potential for stress and anxiety reduction in children with ASD

An assistive technology design framework for ADHD

In this paper, we present a design framework for ADHD assistive technologies that aims to give researchers grounding in the background research on the condition, to provide a lingua franca, and to highlight potential research directions for HCI researchers within assistive technology. The design framework couples ADHD patient challenge areas to technological opportunities and it provides a set of practical design strategies for developing successful assistive technologies for people with ADHD. The framework is based on empirical studies, ADHD research, and related work on assistive technologies. We map existing assistive technologies and potential new research efforts to the framework concepts. This way we show how it is used to support and advance the research and development of novel assistive technologies for the ADHD domain

Visualization and Interaction Technologies in Serious and Exergames for Cognitive Assessment and Training: A Survey on Available Solutions and Their Validation

Exergames and serious games, based on standard personal computers, mobile devices and gaming consoles or on novel immersive Virtual and Augmented Reality techniques, have become popular in the last few years and are now applied in various research fields, among which cognitive assessment and training of heterogeneous target populations. Moreover, the adoption of Web based solutions together with the integration of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning algorithms could bring countless advantages, both for the patients and the clinical personnel, as allowing the early detection of some pathological conditions, improving the efficacy and adherence to rehabilitation processes, through the personalisation of training sessions, and optimizing the allocation of resources by the healthcare system. The current work proposes a systematic survey of existing solutions in the field of cognitive assessment and training. We evaluate the visualization and interaction technologies commonly adopted and the measures taken to fulfil the need of the pathological target populations. Moreover, we analyze how implemented solutions are validated, i.e. The chosen experimental designs, data collection and analysis. Finally, we consider the availability of the applications and raw data to the large community of researchers and medical professionals and the actual application of proposed solutions in the standard clinical practice. Despite the potential of these technologies, research is still at an early stage. Although the recent release of accessible immersive virtual reality headsets and the increasing interest on vision-based techniques for tracking body and hands movements, many studies still rely on non-immersive virtual reality (67.2%), mainly mobile and personal computers, and standard gaming tools for interactions (41.5%). Finally, we highlight that although the interest of research community in this field is increasingly higher, the sharing of dataset (10.6%) and implemented applications (3.8%) should be promoted and the number of healthcare structures which have successfully introduced the new technological approaches in the treatment of their host patients is limited (10.2%)

What is the level of evidence for the use of currently available technologies in facilitating the self-management of difficulties associated with ADHD in children and young people? A systematic review

A number of technologies to help self-manage Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children and young people (YP) have been developed. This review will assess the level of evidence for the use of such technologies. The review was undertaken in accordance with the general principles recommended in the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis. 7545 studies were screened. Fourteen studies of technology that aim to manage difficulties associated with ADHD in children and YP were included. Primary outcome measures were measures that assessed difficulties related to ADHD. Databases searched were MEDLINE, Web of Science (Core collection), CINAHL, the Cochrane Library, ProQuest ASSIA, PsycINFO and Scopus. The methodological quality of the studies was assessed. This review highlights the potential for the use of technology in paediatric ADHD self-management. However, it also demonstrates that current research lacks robustness; using small sample sizes, non-validated outcome measures and little psychoeducation component. Future research is required to investigate the value of technology in supporting children and YP with ADHD and a focus psychoeducation is needed