An AI-Enabled Internet of Things Based Autism Care System for Improving Cognitive Ability of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Abstract

Smart monitoring and assisted living systems for cognitive health assessment play a central role in assessment of individuals’ health conditions. Autistic children suffer from some difficulties including social skills, repetitive behaviors, speech and nonverbal communication, and accommodating to the environment around them. Thus, dealing with autistic children is a serious public health problem as it is hard to determine what they feel with a lack of emotional cognitive ability. Currently, no medical treatments have been shown to cure autistic children, with most of the social assistive research to date focusing on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) without suggesting a real treatment. In this paper, we focus on improving cognitive ability and daily living skills and maximizing the ability of the autistic child to function and participate positively in the community. Through utilizing intelligent systems based Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, we facilitate the process of adaptation to the world around the autistic children. To this end, we propose an AI-enabled IoT system embodied in a sensor for measuring the heart rate to predict the state of the child and then sending the state to the guardian with feeling and expected behavior of the child via a mobile application. Further, the system can provide a new virtual environment to help the child to be capable of improving eye contact with other people. This way is represented in pictures of these persons in 3D models that break this child’s fear barrier. The system follows strategies that have focused on social communication skill development particularly at young ages to be more interactive with others.