Children with autism may have an easier time reading facial expressions and navigating social interactions when they use Google Glass paired with a smartphone app.
Researchers in a small study found that The system, dubbed "Superpower Glass," helps them decipher what's happening with people around them.
The experiment included 71 children, ages 6 to 12, who were receiving a standard treatment for autism known as applied behavioral analysis therapy. According to Reuters, this type of therapy typically involves using structured exercises like flash cards depicting faces to help kids learn to recognize different emotions.
Forty kids were randomly assigned to use the "Superpower Glass" system, glasses with a camera and speaker that sent information on what children saw and heard to a smartphone app designed to help them decode and respond to social interactions. While kids with autism can struggle to recognize and respond to emotions, the app gave them feedback in real time to help bolster these skills.
After six weeks of using Superpower Glass in 20-minute sessions four times a week, researchers found that kids who received this digital support scored better on tests of socialization, communication and behavior than the control group of 31 kids who received only standard care for autism.
Senior study author Dennis Wall of Stanford University in California, said that with Superpower Glass, "Children learn to seek out social interactions, learn that faces are interesting, and that they can learn what they're saying or what the faces are telling them." "This is powerful since it encourages social initiations - a form of fostering social motivation by the child and they're learning that they can get the emotions of their social partners by themselves," Wall said by email.
The glasses act as a messenger and interpreter, with the app relying on artificial intelligence to offer feedback in real time that can help kids track faces and classify emotions. A green light flashes when kids look at a face, and then the app uses emojis to tell kids what emotion is in front of them, whether it's happy or angry or scared or surprised.
Kids' interactions are also logged by the app so parents can look later and talk to kids about how well they did at recognizing and responding to emotions.
