Cognoa, a consumer healthcare company that makes machine learning-based app for tracking children’s health and development, has exclusively licensed an AI system designed to improve socialization skills in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Dubbed the Superpower Glass, the technology was developed at Stanford University School of Medicine. It uses Google Glass and is designed to encourage children’s facial engagement while providing feedback on social situations, reports MobiHealthNews.
Children with ASD can struggle to recognize and respond to emotions, but the app reinforced these skills by providing them feedback in real time.
A small study found when children used the Superpower Glass at home, it helped them decipher what’s happening with people around them, bringing significant improvements in their socialization skills, compared to their counterparts that received only the standard care.
The children used the glasses in 20-minute sessions four times a week. After six weeks of using the glasses, the children scored better on tests of socialization, communication and behavior than the kids in the control group who received only standard care for autism.
“The intervention teaches children emotion recognition, facial engagement, and the salience of emotion, suggesting the potential for multiple mechanism(s) of action driving the observed improvement in social behavior,” the researchers wrote in the study.
Cognoa said it will be leveraging the Stanford technology “to accelerate development and worldwide commercialization of a novel digital therapeutic for children with [ASD].”
Cognoa is productizing the Super Glass technology on more commonly used, broadly available digital platforms to increase its accessibility. It is designed to be used in the home by families as a supplement to behavioral care from a specialist for improved outcomes.
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“Digital therapeutics can extend a therapist’s reach into the home, complementing in-person therapies for improved life-long outcomes,” Brent Vaughan, CEO and cofounder of Cognoa, said in a statement. “We know that many families are facing obstacles to get their children the help they need. This technology accelerates our goal to empower parents with access to evidence-based solutions so they can more directly impact the progress of their children.”
