Emotional Advisor to help children with autism in social communication

• Main Authors: Teik-Toe Teoh, Shi-Min Lim, Siu-Yeung Cho, Yok-Yen Nguwi
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Autism; Educational institutions; Emotion recognition; Fuzzy logic; Fuzzy sets; Real-time systems; Testing

The deficit or impairment in the ability to rationalize emotional states is known as mind-blindness. This condition is seen to be the key inhibitor of social and emotional intelligence for autistic people. Autism is a spectrum of neuro-developmental conditions which affects one's social functioning, communication and is often accompanied with repetitive behaviours and obsessive interests. Inabilities resulting from mind-blindness include gauging the interest of other parties during conversations, withdrawal from social contact, oblivion to social cues, in difference to people's opinions and incomprehensible non-verbal communication. The existing assistive devices and tools mostly serve as remedial tools that provide a learning environment for autistic children to learn about the norms of social behaviour. However, these tools lack the capability to operate in conjunction with real-world situations. An idea is proposed that aims to fulfill this need. We propose a portable device which is able to assist autistic people in communication in real-life situations. We believe that this portable device can help to narrow the gap between us and the world of autism through assisted communication. In this paper, we present one part of this device which is called Emotional Advisor to assist autistic children in engaging in meaningful conversations where people are able to ascertain how they are feeling during communication.