Multimodal annotation tool for challenging behaviors in people with Autism spectrum disorders

TLDR

Individuals with ASD frequently exhibit challenging behaviors that harm their own and others’ quality of life, and mobile technology offers a way to capture the contextual data surrounding these events. Collecting such data can improve both intervention strategies and behavioral phenotyping. The authors collaborated with behavioral scientists and therapists to define design requirements and built a user‑friendly mobile app for real‑time collection, labeling, and sharing of in‑situ behavior data. The app has been released as an open‑source project, enabling validation and further development by the research community.

Abstract

Individuals diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) often have challenging behaviors (CB's), such as self-injury or emotional outbursts, which can negatively impact the quality of life of themselves and those around them. Recent advances in mobile and ubiquitous technologies provide an opportunity to efficiently and accurately capture important information preceding and associated with these CB's. The ability to obtain this type of data will help with both intervention and behavioral phenotyping efforts. Through collaboration with behavioral scientists and therapists, we identified relevant design requirements and created an easy-to-use mobile application for collecting, labeling, and sharing in-situ behavior data in individuals diagnosed with ASD. Furthermore, we have released the application to the community as an open-source project so it can be validated and extended by other researchers.