Can Artificial Intelligence Detect Autism? – Yes!
Artificial intelligence is a computer program that can learn and adapt. AI is particularly good at pattern analysis with a high degree of detail precision. Autism is a condition that is difficult for humans to diagnose before clear social behavioral patterns manifest in a growing child. Can Artificial Intelligence detect autism and create the perfect solution for early childhood intervention? The data says “Yes”.
Using Artificial Intelligence to Detect Autism in 2 Different Ways
In the past, identifying a person’s behavior patterns and their response to social cues primarily detects autism. However, detecting autism early is also the best way to help people with the condition learn the skills they will need to thrive in adulthood. A recently developed app that pairs Artificial Intelligence analysis with the “computer vision” of a phone’s camera can detect autism in young children with a high degree (80% +) of accuracy.
The app works by tracking the child’s eye focus and blink rate during a sequence of short videos containing social cues and interesting objects. Neurotypical children respond to character names and suppress their blink rate when looking at people. Autistic children respond less to character names and suppress their blink rate when looking at objects.
Neurologists also claim that they can detect autism in children as young as 18 months. This is through analyzing missing neurological connections in MRI scans using AI-powered analysis.
Early Diagnosis, Early Intervention, and Lifelong Success
Autism is a condition many people live with successfully as independent, dynamic, and happy adults. The best outcomes often result from an early diagnosis where they guide children through learning skills. This will help them thrive as adults when their brains are at their most adaptive. Autistic children who receive early intervention support can be socially successful, self-aware, and self-improving by learning these skills at an early age.
Using Artificial Intelligence to help detect autism in children at earlier stages, before preschool socialization, can drastically increase the number of children who receive early therapy and support.
How AI Helps People With Special Needs
AI is taking on an ever-more-helpful role when it comes to assisting people with special needs. Because AI can understand goals and adapt to patterns of input, it can also adapt to the unique needs of each person paired with an AI-assistive program.
For example, Parrotron by Google learns to listen to impaired speech and translate it into fluent conversation. It adapts to the speech impairments of each patient.
The Dot Watch uses AI to translate digital and environmental signals into dynamically generated braille for the visually impaired.
Programs like RogerVoice create useful transcripts of group conversations for those with hearing impairment. It uses an AI-adaptive understanding of human speech to indicate who is talking and even subtle details like emphasized words.
Can ChatGPT Help People With Special Needs?
Currently, the “face” of AI is ChatGPT, a conversational AI connected to several years of archived internet information. ChatGPT understands questions even when you phrase them badly. It can read through typos and can maintain the focus of a conversation without restating what has already been said.
If you’ve played with ChatGPT, you know that it has limitations and a great deal of potential. Can it help people with disabilities? Absolutely. Of course, it depends on the disability.
Of course, it works best for literate persons with social or learning disabilities who benefit from a tireless question-answering companion with a meticulous computer mind.
The Tireless Answerer of Questions
ChatGPT will explain anything and will try to answer any question. Especially if the answers are common knowledge somewhere on the internet. For example, you can ask ChatGPT how drains work, the grammatical structure of a sentence, or why a person might feel sad and hungry at the same time.
People with learning disabilities can ask ChatGPT to be their infinitely patient tutor, explaining things like school subjects with a partner who never gets tired of being asked “Why” or “Please explain it again”.
A Reading Comprehension Tool
If you give ChatGPT a document or a clip of text, it will quickly read it and give you a summary. You can ask ChatGPT what it means and get help with reading comprehension about the details.
Programmers use this to understand complicated error messages. However, the same technique can be used, for example, to help people with social disabilities understand what is being asked of them in a wordy email or help someone with a reading impairment understand the terms of a contract when stated in a simplified list.
A Checker of Logic
It is also possible to run logical reasoning through ChatGPT. You can ask if you have figured something out, if your sentence is structured correctly, or if you have properly interpreted a message. ChatGPT will happily help you analyze the situation and provide logical answers.
The Future of AI and Disability Assistance
From where we stand today, it is clear that AI is quickly taking an important role in disability assistance. From early diagnosis to tools that can help people overcome their disabilities, AI’s adaptive, analytical, and tireless nature can adapt to almost any need. All that’s left is clever human implementation, putting AI into the apps and devices where it can be the most helpful.