Autisma

Autisma is a digital assistant embedded into a game designed to improve cognitive, communication, and memory skills for children aged 5 to 12 that are affected by such disorders. 

1 out of 59 children is diagnosed with a disease from the autism spectrum. All people affected by such a disorder show a lack of verbal and non-verbal communication as well as social interaction.

The app was developed based on the well-known therapy methods ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) and Logopedia (a digital speech therapy tool), researched in collaboration with therapists from Help Autism Suceava.

These were the technical goals of the project: 

• developing an app that changes the content dynamically, based on user progress; 

• delivering a highly customizable user experience; 

• creating a multi-user app that also provides doctors with a set of data about each user, that can be used to tailor better therapy sessions; 

• building a modular app that can be improved upon with ease. 

The features of the Assistant module are as follows: 

• dynamic generation of game objects based on user progress; 

• handling of teaching objects; 

• animations that respond to player input; 

• an assistant that says the name of the object once it’s correctly guessed. 

Figure 1

The first game (see figure 2) is a matching game that aims to help users improve their memory and awareness skills. 

Figure 2

The third game (see figure 3) aims to help users improve their communication and social skills, improve their pronunciation, and to learn new words. 

Autisma is designed to be a fun repetition-based app that aims to improve the quality of day-to-day life for children affected by autism. 

Some advantages of the app include the following:

• cheaper than traditional therapy sessions; 

• designed both for home/individual use and for help centers; 

• easy to export for multiple platforms. 

Figure 3

User module 
designed from the get-go with multi-user/profile in mind each profile has it’s a particular set of settings:

• reward type 

• favorite color 

• volume setting

• language  

• session time

AI and assistant module

• dynamic generation of game objects based on user progress 

• handling of teaching materials/objects 

• increasing/decreasing game difficulty 

• an assistant that speaks out the object once it's correctly guessed 

• animations that respond to player input

IBM Watson module

• real-time speech processing (English) 

• generation of assistant’s voice

Therapy module 

game 1. match-two type mini-game 

• increasing/stimulating memory 

• stimulating awareness 

• small doses of rewards

Therapy module 
game 2. association game

• learning what object belongs in which room

• learning what food different animals eat

game 3.play by talking with the assistant 

• increasing speech and social skills 

• improved pronunciation -learning new words 

• visual and audio rewards

Doctor module 

• all objects have multiple tags/attributes 

• a score will be kept for each object, for data analysis 

• said data can be used to better tailor therapy sessions 

• behavior patterns could be observed by viewing the data (the user usually fails to match objects that are red)

Impact on our community 

Autisma is designed to be a fun repetition-based app that aims to improve the quality of day-to-day life for children affected by the autism spectrum.

• meant to be cheaper than traditional therapy sessions

• designed both for home/single use or for help centers

• easy to export for multiple platforms