Toward emotional interactive videogames for children with autism spectrum disorder

Technology and videogames have been proven as motivating tools for working attention and complex communication skills, especially in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In this work, we present two experiences that used interactive games for promoting communication and attention. The first game considers emotions in order to measure children’s attention, concentration and satisfaction, while the second uses tangible tabletops for fostering cognitive planning. The analysis of the results obtained allows to propose a new study integrating both, in which the tangible interactive game is complemented with the emotional trainer in a way that allows identifying and classifying children’s emotion with ASD when they collaborate to solve cognitively significant and contextualized challenges. The first application proposed is an emotional trainer application in which the child can work out the seven basic emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, surprise and neutral). Further, a serious videogame is proposed: a 3D maze where the emotions can be captured. The second case study was carried out in a Special Education Center, where a set of activities for working cognitive planning was proposed. In this case, a tangible interactive tabletop was used to analyze, in students with ASD, how the communication processes with these interfaces affect to the attention, memory, successive and simultaneous processing that compose cognitive planning from the PASS model. The results of the first study, suggest that the autistic children did not act with previous planning, but they used their perception to adjust their actions a posteriori (that explains the higher number of collisions). On the second case study, the successive processing was not explored. The inclusion of the mazes of case study 1 to a semantic rich scenario could allow us to measure the prior planning and the emotions involved in the maze game. The new physiological sensors will also help to validate the emotions felt by the children. The first study has as objective the capability to imitate emotions and resolve a maze without semantic context. The second study organized all the actions from a semantic context close to users. The attention results presented by the second study are coherent with the first study and complement it showing that attention can be receptive or selective. In the first study case, the receptive attention was the focus of analysis. In the second case, both contributed to explain and understand how it can be developed from a videogame

The autism spectrum as a source of cognitive and cultural diversity

Individual differences in perception and in social cognition are products of both biology and cultural experience. Many of the same differences that typify autism when they occur in extremes also underlie normal human cognitive variation when they occur to more subtle degrees. In particular, autism spectrum conditions are characterised by low degrees of two linked capacities: level of construal, meaning the tendency to represent percepts as individual details rather than as whole contexts; and psychological distance, meaning the tendencies to perceive objects and events in distant rather than peri-personal space, to recall or to anticipate past or future time rather than the here-and-now, to approach social interactions in the allocentric frame of other people rather than one's own egocentric frame, and to represent hypothetical, counterfactual, or fictional beliefs that are at odds with actual facts. Significantly, culture also exerts linked effects on level of construal and psychological distance, which are relatively increased in more contextual, socially focussed cultures and decreased in more individualistic, self-focussed cultures

Mapping the specific pathways to early-onset mental health disorders : the "Watch Me Grow for REAL" study protocol

Background: From birth, the human propensity to selectively attend and respond to critical super-stimuli forms the basis of future socio-emotional development and health. In particular, the first super-stimuli to preferentially engage and elicit responses in the healthy newborn are the physical touch, voice and face/eyes of caregivers. From this grows selective attention and responsiveness to emotional expression, scaffolding the development of empathy, social cognition, and other higher human capacities. In this paper, the protocol for a longitudinal, prospective birth-cohort study is presented. The major aim of this study is to map the emergence of individual differences and disturbances in the system of social-Responsiveness, Emotional Attention, and Learning (REAL) through the first 3 years of life to predict the specific emergence of the major childhood mental health problems, as well as social adjustment and impairment more generally. A further aim of this study is to examine how the REAL variables interact with the quality of environment/caregiver interactions. Methods/Design: A prospective, longitudinal birth-cohort study will be conducted. Data will be collected from four assessments and mothers' electronic medical records. Discussion: This study will be the first to test a clear developmental map of both the unique and specific causes of childhood psychopathology and will identify more precise early intervention targets for children with complex comorbid conditions

Alexithymia, but not Autism Spectrum Disorder, may be Related to the Production of Emotional Facial Expressions

Background A prominent diagnostic criterion of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) relates to the abnormal or diminished use of facial expressions. Yet little is known about the mechanisms that contribute to this feature of ASD. Methods We showed children with and without ASD emotionally charged video clips in order to parse out individual differences in spontaneous production of facial expressions using automated facial expression analysis software. Results Using hierarchical multiple regression, we sought to determine whether alexithymia (characterized by difficulties interpreting one’s own feeling states) contributes to diminished facial expression production. Across groups, alexithymic traits—but not ASD traits, IQ, or sex—were associated with quantity of facial expression production. Conclusions These results accord with a growing body of research suggesting that many emotion processing abnormalities observed in ASD may be explained by co-occurring alexithymia. Developmental and clinical considerations are discussed, and it is argued that alexithymia is an important but too often ignored trait associated with ASD that may have implications for subtyping individuals on the autism spectrum

Comment évaluer la théorie de l’esprit? Revue systématique des outils d’évaluation destinés aux enfants d’âge préscolaire

Essai doctoral présenté en vue de l’obtention du grade de doctorat en psychologie, option neuropsychologie clinique (D.Psy.)La Théorie de l’Esprit (TDE), soit l’habileté à inférer des états mentaux à soi-même et à autrui, est un domaine de recherche ralliant plusieurs disciplines, incluant la psychologie sociale et développementale, la neuropsychologie, les neurosciences sociales et l’orthophonie. Les habiletés de la TDE ont été maintes fois reliées à plusieurs marqueurs d’adaptation sociale, telles des compétences relationnelles et communicationnelles de meilleure qualité. Par ailleurs, la TDE est altérée dans le contexte de nombreuses conditions cliniques. Malgré l’énorme quantité d’études dédiées à la TDE, identifier des outils de mesures appropriés destinés aux enfants d’âge préscolaire demeure un défi. Cet essai a pour but de faciliter l’identification d’outils de mesures de la TDE pour les enfants de 0-5 ans en créant un inventaire de ceux-ci et de leurs caractéristiques. Une introduction positionne l’importance de la TDE à titre d’habileté sociocognitive, la définit et la distingue de construits socio-cognitifs apparentés, survole sa trajectoire développementale et soulève les défis reliés à son évaluation. Une revue systématique de la littérature, sous forme d’article scientifique, présente ensuite la méthodologie utilisée et l’inventaire des outils de mesures réalisé, et permet de souligner la grande variété d’outils évaluant la TDE, mais également de nombreux écueils méthodologiques et psychométriques associés à la création et au choix d’outils appropriés, incluant le nombre limité de sous-habiletés visées, le manque de standardisation et la pauvreté des informations psychométriques disponibles. Une discussion générale est ensuite fournie et relève les apports théoriques, méthodologiques et cliniques de cette recherche pour le domaine de la TDE.Theory of mind (TOM), the ability to infer mental states to self and others, has been a pervasive research theme across many disciplines including developmental, neuro-, and social psychology, social neuroscience and speech therapy. TOM abilities have been consistently linked to markers of social adaptation, such as better communication skills and quality social relationships, and are affected in a broad range of clinical conditions. Despite the wealth and breadth of research dedicated to TOM, identifying appropriate assessment tools for the preschool population remains challenging. This work aims to facilitate the choice and use of adequate measures for children aged 0 to 5 years by generating a comprehensive inventory of TOM measures and listing their characteristics. The introduction highlights the importance of TOM as a social-cognitive ability, defines TOM and distinguishes it from related yet distinct sociocognitive constructs, provides information on its developmental trajectory and raises challenges associated with TOM assessment. A systematic review of the literature is then presented in the form of an article and provides details on the methods used and the inventory of TOM measures generated. The remarkable variety of measures that have been created to assess TOM is highlighted, but also the numerous methodological and psychometric challenges associated with developing and choosing appropriate measures, including issues related to the limited range of sub-abilities targeted, lack of standardisation across studies and paucity of psychometric information provided. Finally, a general conclusion provides the opportunity to discuss the theoretical, methodological and clinical contributions of this project

Using EEG to evaluate the effects of horse assisted therapy in children with autism spectrum disorders: Definition of the methods and preliminary experiments with an ASD group

Resumo Do Projeto: Atualmente, o Perturbação do Espectro do Autismo (PEA) é considerado um distúrbio do neurode-senvolvimento caraterizado por deficits na comunicação e interação social, além de mudanças com-portamentais. Um possível método de intervenção terapêutica para o desenvolvimento de capacidade nas áreas deficitárias de crianças com PEA é a terapia assistida por cavalos. Vários estudos têm de-monstrado que a hipoterapia tem um impacto positivo no desenvolvimento dessas crianças; no entanto, o tipo de avaliação feita tem sido apenas qualitativa. A recolha de dados é realizada de forma observacional do comportamento e estado de concen-tração da criança durante a terapia e também por meio de entrevistas e preenchimento de formulá-rios sobre comunicação, interação social e comportamento das crianças. Portanto, o fato de os dados serem apenas qualitativos e subjetivos é uma limitação para avaliar a evolução do desempenho de cada criança durante a sessão de terapia. O objetivo principal desta dissertação é, portanto, contribuir para a validação científica da terapia assistida por cavalos, enquanto método terapêutico para o desenvolvimento das crianças com PEA. Para tal foi construída uma metodologia baseada num sistema de estimulação visual associado à mo-nitorização cerebral EEG (eletroencefalograma), como forma de avaliar parâmetros relacionados com a interação social (em termos de processamento de emoções) e atenção em crianças com PEA. Contudo, a escassez dos dados obtidos nesta tese permite apenas uma avaliação preliminar da meto-dologia desenvolvida.Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is presently considered aneurodevelopmental disorder catego-rized by deficits in communication and social interaction, along with behavioural changes. A possible method of a therapeutic intervention for capacity development of children with ASD is horse-assisted therapy. Studies have shown that hippotherapy has a positive impact on the development of these children, however, the type of performed evaluation is merely qualitative.Indeed, the data collection is performed in an observational way of the behaviour and state of concentration of the child during the therapy and also through interviews and filling of forms on the communication, social interaction and behaviour of the children. Therefore, the fact that the data are only qualitative and subjective is a limitation for assessing the evolution of the child along with the therapy. The main objective of this dissertation is, therefore, to contribute to the scientific validation of horse-assisted therapy, as a therapeutic method for the development of children with ASD. To that end, a methodology was built based on a visual stimulation system associated with brain monitoring EEG (electroencephalogram), as a way of assessing parameters related to social interaction (in terms of processing emotions) and attention in children with ASD. However, the scarcity of the results ob-tained in this thesis allows only a preliminary assessment of the developed methodology

Exploring the Relationship Between Emotion Recognition, Autistic Traits, and Alexithymia Traits in College Students

Accurately recognizing and interpreting the emotions of others face, voice, and body language is a crucial component for successfully building good social skills with peers. This study explores emotional recognition in individuals with autistic traits, measured by the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ), and individuals with alexithymia traits, measured by Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20). Individuals are presented with various complex emotions using Genova Emotion Recognition Short version (GERT-S). This present study examines the relationship between AQ and TAS-20 and determine if there is any interaction between them for emotional recognition. The researcher found that there was a negative correlation between autistic traits and emotional recognition abilities. The results also indicate that there was a positive correlation between autistic traits and alexithymia traits but they did not interact with each other for emotional recognition

Using the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) as a Framework to Dimensionally Map Neurodevelopmental Disorders.

Mental disorders are organised via the categorical framework of the DSM-5-TR, which has several issues (e.g., extensive co-occurrence). However, evidence alternatively supports the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP), a dimensional framework of mental disorders. We extended the HiTOP by considering the dimensional position of Neurodevelopmental disorders and related experiences, and found that they generally fitted under existing HiTOP domains (i.e., autism under Detachment, ADHD under Disinhibition, and specific learning disorder and tic disorders under Psychoticism)

Why do autistic women develop restrictive eating disorders? Exploring social risk factors

This thesis seeks to understand why women with Autism Spectrum Disorder (‘autism’) are more likely to develop restrictive eating disorders (‘REDs’). Part 1 is a conceptual introduction exploring the wider topic. To start, I introduce key terms and explore current understanding of autism among females, including the notion of ‘social camouflaging’; the masking of autistic traits and imitation of social behaviours, common among autistic women. Next, I discuss issues around prevalence and diagnosis of autism among those with REDs and the experience of eating disorder treatment for autistic individuals. Finally, a comprehensive review of the literature, outlining the multiple factors which might increase the likelihood of autistic women developing REDs, is presented. Part 2 documents an empirical study investigating the specific role of social risk factors for autistic women with REDs. It is hypothesised that difficulties gaining acceptance from others increases the likelihood of autistic women to perceive themselves as inferior. Moreover, that autistic women who attempt to ‘fit in’ through social camouflaging, are more vulnerable to such risk factors. Two groups of autistic women, with and without REDs, are compared on measures of social comparison, submissive behaviour, fear of negative evaluation and social camouflaging. Autistic women with REDs are found to compare themselves as significantly more inferior than autistic women without REDs. The clinical implications of the findings are discussed. Part 3 of the thesis is a critical appraisal which describes personal reflections on the research process, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and suggestions for future research