A survey on technological tools and systems for diagnosis and therapy of autism spectrum disorder

摘要

Progress in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can make a real difference in the quality-of-life of persons with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) by acting on several aspects, from customized software for communication, to emotion recognition, to social behavior and also to provide systems for the observation of the wide spectrum of manifestations, to ease the diagnosis, to support the therapy, and to monitor the improvement and the growth of children with ASD. This has been achieved by the introduction of a large number of innovative technologies, spanning from Internet of Things, to robotics, virtual and augmented reality, etc. Differently from other surveys on the same research area, we focus this survey on innovative technologies used in this field, and we organize a classification of the papers based on three different but strictly crossed axis, namely the triad of impairment (either communication, social interaction, or social behaviors), research purpose (either diagnosis or therapy), and system activity (either monitoring or intervention).