Autism News Update: iPad Or Smart Tablet Games Can Help Identify Autism In Children

Autism has become a rising problem and sometimes it takes health providers a while before the condition can be diagnosed. Now, a new research revealed that autism in children can be identified by tracking their hand movements while playing a game on an iPad.

As many may have already known, autism spectrum disorder is a childhood neurodevelopmental disorder that affects the ability of a person to communicate and interact, and it has been estimated to happen in at least one in 160 children.

According to bgr.in, Delafield-Butt and colleagues at a start-up company Harimata used iPad games to observe players' hand movements, while gathering information that help in identifying autism. The study said that the research team summarized a plan on how the technology could offer accessible and less intrusive method to diagnose the developmental disorder.

Dr. Jonathan Delafield-Butt, a Senior Lecturer in Child Development at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland said: "We have shown that children with autism can be identified by their gameplay patterns on an iPad." "This is potentially a major breakthrough for early identification of autism, because no stressful and expensive tests by clinicians are needed," he added.

Science Daily has also reported Delafield-Butt saying that it is important to diagnose the disorder earlier so parent and children could gain access to a variety of services support. For the study, the researchers analyzed the hand movement data collected from 37 children with autism, aged between 3 and 6 years old. these children were asked to play several games on smart tablet computers with touch-sensitive screens and embedded movement sensors.

The result of the study said: "Analysis revealed these patterns consisted of greater forces at contact and with a different distribution of forces within a gesture, and gesture kinematics were faster and larger, with more distal use of space." It is also important to note that this new "serious game" assessment offers cheaper, faster, and fun way of examining autism. However, more work is needed to validate the findings and test for its limitations. Delafield-Butt also continued saying, This study is the first step toward a validated instrument. Interestingly, our study goes further in elucidating the origins of autism, because it turns out that movement is the most important differentiator in the gameplay data."

Meanwhile, Mail Online pointed out that in the United Kingdom, about 700,000 individuals live with autism and combined cost of healthcare and support sums up to over $30 billion a year. This research is a collaboration between the University of Strathclyde and colleagues at Harimata, who believes using fun iPad games to track players' hand movements is less intrusive way to diagnose the developmental disorder.