Are we connected? How to use everyday video to track developmental progress in social communication

Background: Researchers often use video to measure social communication. This is expensive and time consuming as it is usually conducted in laboratory settings. We developed a method for anyone to utilize everyday video... [ view full abstract ]

Background:
Researchers often use video to measure social communication. This is expensive and time consuming as it is usually conducted in laboratory settings. We developed a method for anyone to utilize everyday video from home, school, therapy, etc. to track developmental progress.

Methodology:
We recorded 5 minute videos before and during a play based parent coaching intervention for children with autism. Coders did not know the children nor the sequence of videos. Coders scored how much time parent-child pairs were connected and looked at the balance between the people in their initiation of interactions.

Results:
1. In one study we show that we can simply and reliably measure connectedness in parent-child pairs
2. In another pilot study we show that the intervention increases total time that people are connected.

Conclusions:
We have developed an easy tool for measuring and tracking social communication, and shown in a pilot format that a play-based parent coaching improves social communication in in children with autism. This tool may save on the expense of doing video measurement of the impact of interventions and, perhaps more important, offer easier tracking and study of interactions natural settings.

Other groups are trying our system with in range of settings including families impacted by armed conflict and dyads engaged in video game interactions. Separate development of an inexpensive and downloadable smartphone app is planned to offer wider access to our approach.

Potential Conflict of interest: 1. This method was developed by a professor with much of the work carried out PhD candidate students as a project in a seminar on conducting research. The professor was paid for teaching,... [ view full abstract ]

Potential Conflict of interest:
1. This method was developed by a professor with much of the work carried out PhD candidate students as a project in a seminar on conducting research. The professor was paid for teaching, however there has been no outside funding of the work to date.
2. While the creation of a smartphone application could have minor marketing potential, any income for such a tool is unlikely to exceed the cost of development and so we are looking at having it developed within a university-industry partnership. There has not yet been any actual development to date.

Protection and Ethics:
Research proposals for the development of this tool have been fully vetted by our Institutional Review Board for Protection of Human Subjects. The process has utilized subject consents, secure collection and storage of data, and anonymity of identifying information.