Details
Robot-Assisted Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder
Funding Agency: Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB)
Start Date: 2021-12-23 Duration: 2022-12-22
PI: Jainendra Shukla
Early detection of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is crucial for deciding the appropriate educational and behavioral intervention at the most suitable time. However, there are no absolute biological markers for autism and accurate diagnosis of ASD requires extensive training and experience acquired over the years, such expertise is limited to few individuals centered in metropolitans and is beyond the reach of most of the affected population. robot-assisted interventions have found increasing acceptance as a support tool for therapy and education for children with autism (CwA). CwA prefers to interact with technological tools rather than human beings and hence, robot-assisted diagnosis systems can be employed to improve the early detection of ASD in an automated assessment manner making the ASD diagnosis more objective. The overarching goal of this project is to develop a robot-assisted system for the diagnosis of ASD suitable to children of Indian ethnicity. Upon validation, the benefits of this project can be made available to the unreachable children masses of India.