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Autism Spectrum Disorder

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 Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Science

Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering

Course Number BME 705

Course Title Rehabilitation engineering
Semester/Year Fall 2018
Instructor Dr. ​Kristiina Mai

​ ​ Final paper

Report Title AUTISM 

SPECTRUM 
DISORDER 

Submission Date 02/Nov/2018

Performance Date 02/Nov/2018

Name Student ID Signature*

Zahra Ghaneshirazi 4267 M.shirazi 
Ehsan Moghimi 3290 E.Moghimi 
(Note: remove the first 4 digits from your student ID)

*By signing above you attest that you have contributed to this submission and confirm that all work you have
contributed to this submission is your own work. Any suspicion of copying or plagiarism in this work ​will result
in an investigation of Academic Misconduct and may result in a “0” on the work, an “F” in the course, or
possibly more severe penalties, as well as a Disciplinary Notice on your academic record under the Student
Code of Academic Conduct, which can be found online at:
http://www.ryerson.ca/senate/policies/pol60.pdf​.
 ​ AUTISM 

SPECTRUM 

DISORDER  

​ ahra Ghaneshirazi
Z
500664267

&

Ehsan Moghimi
500713290

Final report
Rehabilitation engineering
BME 705
Fall/ 2018
Instructor :​ Dr. ​Kristiina Mai

1
Table of Contents:

1. Abstract……………………………………………………………….. .. Page 3

Literature review

2. Background ……………………………………………………………... Page 4

Background and discussion

3. Research………………………………….…………………………….... Page 5

Technical report

4. Conclusion ………………………………….……………………………. Page 9

5. References …………………..…………………………………....……..Page 10

2
Abstract:
​Literature review

“Autism is a neuropsychiatric disorder characterised by severe and sustained impairment in

social interaction, deviance in communication, and patterns of behaviour and interest that are

restricted, stereotyped, or both. Onset is generally before age 3 years”​(Kanner, 1992).​”Autism

spectrum disorder (ASD) and autism are both general terms for a cluster of complex disorders of

brain development. These disorders are categorized, in varying degrees, by having problems in

social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication and repetitive behaviors”​(Frith , 1991).

Both children and adults with autism characteristically show difficulties in verbal and non-verbal

communication, social interactions, and leisure or play activities​(Adams , 2011)​.Autistic

behaviors continue into adulthood, but the consequences of the disorder diverge from little

speech and poor daily living skills throughout life to the accomplishment of college degrees and

independent functioning. ​(Frith , 1991).

“Adults with autism might pass as being merely odd or isolated, or they might be given a

judgement of obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizoid personality, simple schizophrenia,

affective disorder, mental retardation, or brain damage”​(Adams , 2011).

3
Background:
​Background and discussion

Autism seems to have its roots in very early brain development. However, the most understandable signs

of autism and indicators of autism incline to begin between 2 and 3 years of age​(Adams , 2011)​“Children

with autism have often been reported to have gastrointestinal problems that are more frequent and more

severe than in children from the general population”(Adams , 2011).

“The disorder was first designated in 1943 by Kanner.Children with autism have often been stated to have

gastrointestinal problems that are more frequent and more severe than in children from the general

population.”​(What is autism? , 2014)​.

Children with autism do not have a good relationship with playing games. They tend to change the

oriented game designed into their own orientation. An example of this would be lining up toys instead of

playing with them. They also have no interest in participating in a “pretend game”; which playing a

character in a group game. This is a normal game among children above age 2.on of the method to detect

a child with autism is to analyze the interaction of a preschool kid with his/her toys.

Many children with autism have long period of attention to a self-initiated activity. This is not true in the

case joint challenging activity with another person. Their activities are usually individual orientended.

With the addition of their physical reaction to a stressful situation, such as hand flapping, prevents them

from having social interactions with other people. For the parents and the caregivers of these kids, it is

often quit a challenge to keep up with the frequent mid night awakenings of the kid. A major temper

outbursts for autistic kids is when someone tries to consciously or unconsciously interrupt their focus on

their self- initiated activity.

4
Research:

Symptoms of Autism:

Behavior

The major problem associated with autism is social skills. People with autism have lack of understanding

reciprocal verbal and nonverbal communication. They also have low range of interest and hobbies. Unlike

as it seems, they may not lack affection, but they would not necessarily show their affection or reciprocate

it. Being said, they can have unprovoked aggressive behaviours. If it is not take care of early on, it could

lead to requirement of heavy medication and/ or institutionalization. In the case of children with autism,

shyness , liability mood, and shyness may lead to depression or detachment. In terms of their

dependency, the kids with autism are reported by parents to be in practice independency and are proud of

it.

Communication

In terms of communication, kids with autism usually lack the ability to fully comprehend and use speech

and gestures for their communication. These kids have language disorders. The reason for this can be

mainly due to the autistic children's inability to characterize speech. The ability to characterize speech

requires the ability to decode the rapid autistic stimuli which is compromised in children with autism. All

these circumstances leads to the most devastating language disorder. These disorders include verbal

auditory agnosia or verbal deafness. As autism has a spectrum, less affected children may better

comprehension than expression. This is why they may have poorly articulated, agramatical and spare

speech. Others who have the ability to improve their communication are able to form complete and fluent

sentences, but their communication would be around repetitive phrases and words. Very low level of

intuition would be used in their communication.

5
Cognition

75 percent of the children with autism are cognitively underdeveloped. Their level of cognitive ability is

deeply dependent on the severity of their autistic symptoms. IQ test during preschool years are not a good

measure of the cognitive state of children with autism. This is due to the reason that some of them may be

able improve significantly through specialized treatment programs. Also as it was said, they are usually

limited in term of intuition. With being said, some group of the children with autism have good musical,

mathematical, and visual-spatial abilities.

Types of ASD:
There are three different types of Autism Spectrum Disorders:

● Autistic Disorder​​ ​(also called "classic" autism)

“This is what most people think of when hearing the word "autism." People with autistic disorder
usually have significant language delays, social and communication challenges, and unusual
behaviors and interests. Many people with autistic disorder also have intellectual disability”​(What
is autism? , 2014).

● Asperger Syndrome

“People with Asperger syndrome usually have some milder symptoms of autistic disorder. They
might have social challenges and unusual behaviors and interests. However, they typically do not
have problems with language or intellectual disability”​(What is autism? , 2014)

● Pervasive Developmental Disorder – ​Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS; also called "atypical
autism")

“People who meet some of the criteria for autistic disorder or Asperger syndrome, but not all,
may be diagnosed with PDD-NOS. People with PDD-NOS usually have fewer and milder
symptoms than those with autistic disorder. The symptoms might cause only social and
communication challenges”​(What is autism? , 2014)

6
 Technical report:

Solution & Developments

“Social semi-humanoid robots are rapidly acquisition territory in the education and healthcare industry.

The quick progress of artificial intelligence (AI) joined with new developments in robotics have caused in

the formation of super friendly semi-humanoid robots that are perfect for assisting the elderly and

children alike in countless therapy and rehabilitation scenarios.Robot-assisted therapy is a type of therapy

that benefits to augment the old-style human therapy and is considered a game changer. Recently,

robot-assisted therapy with children who suffer from autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been

tremendously successful. This has opened up an area within robotics that has potentials to make a

difference in the future of healthcare and education” ​(Ackovska, 2017).

Challenges​:

As the new innovative system is a great platform for assisting the autistic therapies, it also comes

with challenges. As an example, it is common for a person with ASD not to glaze their eyes as a

sign of their attention in social interactions​ (N

​ uovo.2018)​. This is actually one of the focuses in

many intervention therapies since it is a great biofeedback from the user about their social

attention ​(N
​ uovo.2018)​. This can be quite challenging for the robot’s camera to detect due to

their limited sensors and lower quality of their camera for faster integration. A solution to this

would be a use of fixed external sensing devices that are extra hands to analyze the social glaze

interaction of the child of ASD. These devices can be attached to significant locations and angles

of the therapeutic environment which can clearly observe the individual body language.

Afterwards, the data obtained from these devices would wirelessly be sent to the Robots system

7
for further analysis and at the end the robot would give the right output. One downside to this

solution is that the portability of the system would be limited to standard therapeutic

environment. This is not a significant issue since the robot is not developed to the stage of

personal use, and it need to be programmed by the therapist. Therefore; it can currently be used

in a standard therapeutic environment.

Conclusions:

In conclusion, autism is a neuropsychological syndrome that limits the ability to socially interact with

other people, and also restrict communication ability. Throughout this paper, major symptoms of the

autism were stated. These symptoms were grouped in terms of how they behave, communicate, and

cognitively interpret information. The types of the autism in the autism spectrum were explained and the

characteristic and ability of each type was explained. An approaching technical solution to improve the

social and communicative skills for people with autism was socializing and communicating with “Social

semi-humanoid robots” as explained in detail. However, there are still some challenges that needs to be

addressed.There will be many improvements that are need to be done to the ​QTrobat to help people with

autism more efficiently.

8
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References

● Ackovska, N., Kirandziska, V., Tanevska, A., Bozinovska, L., & Bozinovski, A. (2017).
Robot - assisted therapy for autistic children. ​SoutheastCon 2017​.
doi:10.1109/secon.2017.7925401
● Adams, J. B., Johansen, L. J., Powell, L. D., Quig, D., & Rubin, R. A. (2011).
Gastrointestinal flora and gastrointestinal status in children with autism – comparisons to
typical children and correlation with autism severity. ​BMC Gastroenterology,11​(1).
doi:10.1186/1471-230x-11-22
● Frith, U. (n.d.). Asperger and his syndrome. ​Autism and Asperger Syndrome,1​ -36.
doi:10.1017/cbo9780511526770.001
● Kanner, L. (1992). Follow-up Study of Eleven Autistic Children Originally Reported in
1943. ​Focus on Autistic Behavior,​ ​7​(5), 1-11. doi:10.1177/108835769200700501
● Nuovo, A. D., Conti, D., Trubia, G., Buono, S., & Nuovo, S. D. (2018).
Deep learning systems for estimating visual attention in robot-assisted
therapy of children with autism and intellectual disability.​ Robotics,
7(​ 2)
doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca/10.3390/robotics7020025
● Rapin, I., M.D. (1997). Autism.​ The New England Journal of Medicine, 337​(2), 97-104.
Retrieved from
http://ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.lib.ryerson.c
a/docview/223968431?accountid=13631
● What is Autism? (n.d.). Retrieved November 1, 2018, from
https://www.asws.org/WhatisAutism.aspx