Problem: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is growing (1-in-44 children; 4:1 boys:girls) and manifests in debilitating cognitive problems. “Social blindness”, the inability to recognise emotions in others, is a common debilitating feature, treated via intensive 1:1/small-group therapy. It is costly, in very short supply, and thus often infrequent. Growing ASD diagnosis, particularly in boys, threatens to create a “lost-generation” unable to achieve their full potential.

Need: To prevent severe disorder by significantly increased access to emotional recognition training/therapy for those with ASD, and at low(er) cost.

Proposed Solution: To virtualize emotional recognition training in a two-way adaptive, and individualized system by combining three novel key elements (KE1-3)

• Realistic avatars able to show detailed emotions (Availability, Scalability, Reproducibility)
• Sophisticated sensing to read subject emotional state, reaction rates in therapy tasks, stress levels, to create critical subject feedback (Personalisation)
• Programmed therapeutic methods to challenge and respond to measured subject response (Adaptive, Gamified)

Outcome: Highly extensile software-based platform technology solution to dramatically increasing access and scalability, lower costs, and create new insights/pathways in ASD research.