Cambridge, UK — An entrepreneur-scientist found a way to help children with autism identify social situations easier.
Ned Sahin, founder of Brain Power, developed a software program designed for Google Glass that aims to help children on the autism spectrum improve their social skills.
Sahin and his team at Brain Power devised a program that aids children with autism identify the mood of the people they are interacting with by coaching them how the people are feeling. This is done by the program through an illustration that pops up on the glass that tells them how the person they are interacting with is currently feeling.
Moreover, the application developed by Brain Power encourages the children to maintain eye contact and converse with the people they are communicating with.
Another program lets the children practice identifying emotions by letting them choose the appropriate emotion that best represents the mood of the person they are dealing with. The scores are tracked and are made available to the children’s parents at the end of each day.
The program developed by Sahin also lets the parents monitor the child’s heart rate and stress level.
Sahin said of the program:
“I wanted to do something that would impact people in their daily lives. There was a huge unmet need here. It was staggering when I realized how little progress we’ve made in autism…Parents tell me, ‘I just wish my child could look me in the eye. I wish my child could understand what I’m thinking…what I’m feeling.’ And we’re giving them that.”
The original article by Lisa Hughes on the CBS Boston website can be read here
Contributed by Althea Estrella Violeta