Georgia Tech Creating High-Tech Tools to Study Autism

Researchers in Georgia Tech’s Center for Behavior Imaging have developed two new technological tools that automatically measure relevant behaviors of children, and promise to have significant impact on the understanding of behavioral disorders such as autism.

One of the tools—a system that uses special gaze-tracking glasses and facial-analysis software to identify when a child makes eye contact with the glasses-wearer—was created by combining two existing technologies to develop a novel capability of automatic detection of eye contact. The other is a wearable system that uses accelerometers to monitor and categorize problem behaviors in children with behavioral disorders.

Both technologies already are being deployed in the Center for Behavior Imaging’s (CBI) ongoing work to apply computational methods to screening, measurement and understanding of autism and other behavioral disorders.