Stewart Greenhill

TOBY: early intervention in autism through technology

We describe TOBY Playpad, an early intervention program for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). TOBY teaches the teacher -- the parent -- during the crucial period following diagnosis, which often coincides with no access to formal therapy. We reflect on TOBYs evolution from table-top aid for flashcards to an iPad app covering a syllabus of 326 activities across 51 skills known to be deficient for ASD children, such imitation, joint attention and language. The design challenges unique to TOBY are the need to adapt to marked differences in each childs skills and rate of development (a trait of ASD) and teach parents unfamiliar concepts core to behavioural therapy, such as reinforcement, prompting, and fading. We report on three trials that successively decrease oversight and increase parental autonomy, and demonstrate clear evidence of learning. TOBYs uniquely intertwined Natural Environment Tasks are found to be effective for children and popular with parents.

Pervasive multimedia for autism intervention

There is a growing gap between the number of children with autism requiring early intervention and available therapy. We present a portable platform for pervasive delivery of early intervention therapy using multi-touch interfaces and principled ways to deliver stimuli of increasing complexity and adapt to a childs performance. Our implementation weaves Natural Environment Tasks with iPad tasks, facilitating a learning platform that integrates early intervention in the childs daily life. The systems construction of stimulus complexity relative to task is evaluated by therapists, together with field trials for evaluating both the integrity of the instructional design and goal of stimulus presentation and adjustment relative to performance for learning tasks. We show positive results across all our stakeholders-children, parents and therapists. Our results have implications for other early learning fields that require principled ways to construct lessons across skills and adjust stimuli relative to performance.

Distributed query processing for mobile surveillance

Addressing core issues in mobile surveillance, we present an architecture for querying and retrieving distributed, semi-permanent multi-modal data through challenged networks with limited connectivity. The system provides a rich set of queries for spatio-temporal querying in a surveillance context, and uses the network availability to provide best quality of service. It incrementally and adaptively refines the query, using data already retrieved that exists on static platforms and on-demand data that it requests from mobile platforms. We demonstrate the system using a real surveillance system on a mobile 20 bus transport network coupled with static bus depot infrastructure. In addition, we show the robustness of the system in handling different conditions in the underlying infrastructure by running simulations on a real, but historic dataset collected in an offline manner.

A probabilistic approach to the anxious home for activity monitoring

This paper describes an approach to representing normal activities in a smart house based on the concept of anxiety. Anxiety is computed as a function of time and is kept low by interactions of an occupant with the various devices in a house. Abnormality is indicated by a lack of activity or the wrong activity which will cause anxiety to rise ultimately raising an alarm, querying the occupant and/or alerting a carer in real-time. Anxiety is formulated using probabilistic models that describe how people interact with devices in combinations. These models can be learnt interactively as the smart house acts pessimistically enquiring of the occupant if what they are doing is normal. Results are presented for a number of kitchen scenarios and for different formulations of anxiety.

Noetica: a tool for semantic data modelling

Abstract Noetica is a tool for structuring knowledge about concepts and the relationships between them. It differs from typical information systems in that the knowledge it represents is abstract, highly connected and includes meta-knowledge (knowledge about knowledge). Noetica represents knowledge using a strongly-typed semantic network. By providing a rich type system it is possible to represent conceptual information using formalised structures. A class hierarchy provides a basic classification for all objects. This allows for a consistency of representation that is not often found in “free” semantic networks and gives the ability to easily extend a knowledge model while retaining its semantics. We also provide visualisation and query tools for this data model. Visualisation can be used to explore complete sets of link-classes, show paths while navigating through the database, or visualise the results of queries. Noetica supports goal-directed queries (a series of user-supplied goals that the system attempts to satisfy in sequence) and path-finding queries (where the system find relationships between objects in the database by following links).

TOBY play-pad application to teach children with ASD - A pilot trial

Abstract Purpose: To investigate use patterns and learning outcomes associated with the use of Therapy Outcomes By You (TOBY. Playpad, an early intervention iPad application. Methods: Participants were 33 families with a child with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) aged 16 years or less, and with a diagnosis of autism or pervasive developmental disorder – not otherwise specified, and no secondary diagnoses. Families were provided with TOBY and asked to use it for 4–6 weeks, without further prompting or coaching. Dependent variables included participant use patterns and initial indicators of child progress. Results: Twenty-three participants engaged extensively with TOBY, being exposed to at least 100 complete learn units and completing between 17% and 100% of the curriculum. Conclusions: TOBY may make a useful contribution to early intervention programming for children with ASD delivering high rates of appropriate learning opportunities. Further research evaluating the efficacy of TOBY in relation to independent indicators of functioning is warranted.

Multiple hypotheses situation assessment

Situation assessment is the process of interpreting the situation using incomplete inf’ormation. Quality situation assessment enables quality and rapid response by operators. Multiple interpretations arise fiom dfferent assumptions given to missing information, and new information will determine which interpretation is correct, thus requiring system capable of’ belief revision. The Situation Description Language (SDL) was developed with the capabiliiy to form and reason with multiple hypotheses to support belief revision, and allow concurrent multiple interpretations of a situation. Presenting multiple hypotheses could avoid fixating on a single interpretation where better alternatives exist. SDL was demonstrated by forming simple situation assessments in the submarine domain. The issues looked at are how hypotheses are created. and how to eliminate hypotheses selectively.

Rapid Bayesian optimisation for synthesis of short polymer fiber materials.

The discovery of processes for the synthesis of new materials involves many decisions about process design, operation, and material properties. Experimentation is crucial but as complexity increases, exploration of variables can become impractical using traditional combinatorial approaches. We describe an iterative method which uses machine learning to optimise process development, incorporating multiple qualitative and quantitative objectives. We demonstrate the method with a novel fluid processing platform for synthesis of short polymer fibers, and show how the synthesis process can be efficiently directed to achieve material and process objectives.

Towards a Video Browser for the Digital Native

Almost every aspect of how we create, transmit, and consume video has changed, but video interfaces still mimic those from videos inception. We extend Temporal Semantic Compression for interactive video browsing, which uses an arbitrary frame-by-frame interest measure to sub-sample video in real time, with user interface elements that visualize these measures and the effect of compressing on them. We experiment with a novel interest measure for popularity, and design novel visualizations for expressing interest measures and the compression interaction. We conduct the first formative evaluation of the TSC paradigm, with 8 subjects, and report design implications arising from it.

Constructing and navigating personalised views of the Web

Abstract WebClass is a system that allows Web users to create personalised conceptual data which is dynamically merged with original HTML source by a specialised proxy server. This allows groups of users to share ‘views’ of the World Wide Web that include conceptual information such as annotations and subject information. WebClass records paths followed by users during Web exploration. Graph traversal operators can be used to answer a variety of questions about explored regions of Web space.