Wearable Smart Glasses for Assessment of Eye-Contact Behavior in Children With Autism

To promote eye contact learning and behavior in children with autism, there exist specialized environments as well as smartphone applications. However, few currently available techniques support the assessment of desired behavioral improvement during learning. In this paper, we describe recently developed wearable smart glasses instrumented with mechatronic sensors and controllers. The mechatronics glasses, worn by both an instructor and a child, quantitatively measure the eye contact behavior of the child. The instructor glasses connect with a smartphone application through Bluetooth low energy. A user interface is created and hosted on the smartphone to enable the instructor to customize the reward to the child based on improvements in eye contact behavior. Specifically, the smartphone application quantifies the eye contact duration, frequency, latency, and session time, allowing instructors, therapists, and clinicians to monitor and track the child’s progress in eye contact behavior. The results from preliminary user testing of the device with control subjects show that the device is capable of recording sessions details and supporting eye contact behavior assessment.