Medical professionals at Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas are using videogames to educate children about their ailments and treatments. While the use of this technology has focused on patients with cancer, is this a possible application for children with autism ?

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KASPAR is a child-sized robot create to identify optimal robot design in order to maximize interaction with children. Similar research is being conducted through the IROMEC Project (Interactive RObotic social MEdiators as Companions) - mentioned here earlier - which is specifically studying the impact of robots on children with autism.

Read about the KASPAR project here or watch this video.

Also learn about the Aurora Project, a precursor to the work on KASPAR which looked at the use of robots to improve interactive skills in children with autism.

SC@UT, software for augmenting communication by computer devices (PC’s, laptops, PDA’s, etc.), is for children with special communication and educational needs, such as those who suffer from autism. The functioning of SC@UT is meant to be easy: through a PC or a PDA, parents or tutors can download the specific software from http://www.ugr.es/~scaut/. Later, the display is ready to be used as a way of communicating between the child and the society. Through the SC@UT project, the child can express such needs as going to the toilet or hunger, as well as such states as being happy, sad, or tired. SC@UT includes a speaker which transmits the “user’s comments” to the listener.

“This is a project promoted by the Regional Government of Andalusia which attempts to reduce differences between disabled and non-disabled people”, states professor Cañas Delgado. “We have created a configurable parameter tool that allows disabled people to interact with their environment. In this way, their adaptation to a world full of barriers is much easier. In present world, social and labour integration is impossible without communication and access to education.”

Download the software here

In case you need translation for parts of the Sc@ut web site, use the “Translate a web page” feature of Google Language Tools.

On Sunday in Anchorage, Alaska, a man with dementia who wandered away from his medical care facility was found using a GPS-based system. The patient was wearing a wristband that incorporated GPS. When the facility realized he was missing, they were able to identify his location using the GPS technology. Project Lifesaver, maker of the device, states in a press release that they have “more than 10,000 people enrolled in its program and has a 100 percent success rate finding Alzheimer’s patients, Autistic children and other people who wander.”

Read the complete story here.

See the company’s press release here.

Researchers at TUV Product Group, a UK-based company, have begun a research product to investigate whether robots can help children with special needs, includiing autistic children, to develop social skills.

Read more here.

This a followup story to the previous entry.

This story shows how technology from Georgia Tech is able to help parents observe and document the activities of their autistic children.

Read it here.

A new process developed by a Georgia Tech PhD graduate allows teachers to film activities and behaviors in their classrooms using multiple cameras. Read more and watch the news story here.

Information about the technology provider here.

Learning for Children, a Maryland video game manufacturer, claims its software can help diagnose autism in children, ages 3-5. Read the full story here.

Research in a forthcoming report from Internal Balance claims to show a link between autism and other membrane sensitivity disorders and electromagnetic radiation stress which may be caused by cellular phones and other wireless technologies.

Read the company’s press release here.

Cure Autism Now (CAN) and Autism Speaks are sponsoring “Interactive Technologies for Autism,” a Special Interest Group at this year’s Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Computer-Human Interaction conference in San Jose, Calif., on April 28. The Special Interest Group will bring together leading researchers, developers and clinicians to impact the development of products that improve the lives of individuals with autism. CAN and Autism Speaks’ Innovative Technology for Autism chair Daniel Gillette and Georgia Institute of Technology doctoral candidate Gillian Hayes have organized the Special Interest Group.