Novel Communication Aid to Help Reduce Cognitive Load for Autistic Persons

Abstract In this Phase I SBIR projectKoronis Biomedical Technologies CorporationKBTproposes to develop a classroom communication aid for students with Autistic Spectrum DisorderASDChildren with ASD often have problems processing auditory information in conjunction with sensory hyper sensitivitynegative reactions to low level environmental stimuli generally considered to be innocuousThese disturbances can manifest as hyper sensitivity to normal classroom sounds and difficulty with concentrating on and processing of verbal communication from the teacherStudies of auditory processing and perception in ASD show a pattern of results where difficulties appear as the complexity of the auditory information increasesMany students with ASD tend to be visual learners and could benefit from a visual communication instructional approach whereby adding visual support to the auditory component of instruction would greatly aid the visual learner process audio content more easilyThe proposed system includes a set of earbudsor headphonesused to both reduce background noise and provide a direct audio feed from the teacher and a text displaysmartphone or tabletthat provides a real time closed caption of the teacherandapos s audio feed Narrative Aboutinchildren has been identified with ASD according to estimates from CDCandapos s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring NetworkASD is reported to occur in all racialethnicand socioeconomic groupsASD is abouttimes more common among boysinthan among girlsin