נושא הפרוייקט
מספר פרוייקט
מחלקה
שמות סטודנטים
אימייל
שמות מנחים
חקר תנועות ראש של ילדים על הרצף האוטיסטי
A study of head movements of children on the autistic continuum
תקציר בעיברית
תקציר באנגלית
Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by significant impairment in social communication and the presence of stereotypic-repetitive behaviors. These symptoms and behaviors, are expressed differently in each child, depending on the severity of the disorder and other characteristics, which makes it very difficult to diagnose. The face is a rich source of information regarding emotional and social states. Head movements are a significant component of the information provided by the face in verbal and non-verbal communication and play an important role in understanding the analysis of human behavior as a clue to communicative and social interaction. The significance of head movements in relation to social interactions has led to study the relation between autism spectrum disorder and head movement pattern there by shedding light on the condition which is considered of diagnostic complexity. Previous studies have been carried out, strengthen the relation between abnormalities in head movements and autism syndrome. While the symptoms of the autism syndrome are currently diagnosed by clinicians, there is a current need for the use of additional tools that allow screening and support of the clinical impression. Due to the unstructured nature of head movements and the complexity of finding an appropriate evaluation method, additional studies are required to quantify and characterize head movements in an automatic manner. The current project aims to study differences in head movements between autistic children and typical development children. This project characterizes head movement patterns through video recordings of the ADOS assessment among children aged 3-8 and analyzed using two automated facial expressions analysis tools, iMotions and Py-feat. The results of the data analysis show a wider variation in the three axes of head movement among children with autism syndrome than children with typical development. Correlation was found between different characteristics, but no significant differences were found between the two groups in each axis: pitch, yaw, roll. The conclusions from the project raise the need to trace the technologies used regarding the evaluation of the information and to perform additional evaluations on the data.