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Eye Tracking Young Children with Autism
Published on: March 27, 2012
Automated Analysis of Stereotypical Movements in Videos of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder
Tal Barami1,2, Liora Manelis-Baram2,3, Hadas Kaiser2
1Department of Computer Science, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel.
Importance:
Stereotypical motor movements (SMMs) are a form of restricted and repetitive behavior, which is a core symptom of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Current quantification of SMM severity is extremely limited, with studies relying on coarse and subjective caregiver reports or laborious manual annotation of short video recordings.
Objective:
To assess the utility of a new open-source AI algorithm that can analyze extensive video recordings of children and automatically identify segments with heterogeneous SMMs, thereby enabling their direct and objective quantification.
Design, Setting, And Participants:
This retrospective cohort study included 241 children (aged 1.4 to 8.0 years) with ASD. Video recordings of 319 behavioral assessments carried out at the Azrieli National Centre for Autism and Neurodevelopment Research in Israel between 2017 and 2021 were extracted. Behavioral assessments included cognitive, language, and autism diagnostic observation schedule, 2nd edition (ADOS-2) assessments. Data were analyzed from October 2020 to May 2024.
Exposures:
Each assessment was recorded with 2 to 4 cameras, yielding 580 hours of video footage. Within these extensive video recordings, manual annotators identified 7352 video segments containing heterogeneous SMMs performed by different children (21.14 hours of video).
Main Outcomes And Measures:
A pose estimation algorithm was used to extract skeletal representations of all individuals in each video frame and was trained an object detection algorithm to identify the child in each video. The skeletal representation of the child was then used to train an SMM recognition algorithm using a 3 dimensional convolutional neural network. Data from 220 children were used for training and data from the remaining 21 children were used for testing.
Results:
Among 319 behavioral assessment recordings from 241 children (172 [78%] male; mean [SD] age, 3.97 [1.30] years), the algorithm accurately detected 92.53% (95% CI, 81.09%-95.10%) of manually annotated SMMs in our test data with 66.82% (95% CI, 55.28%-72.05%) precision. Overall number and duration of algorithm-identified SMMs per child were highly correlated with manually annotated number and duration of SMMs (r = 0.8; 95% CI, 0.67-0.93; P < .001; and r = 0.88; 95% CI, 0.74-0.96; P < .001, respectively).
Conclusions And Relevance:
This study suggests the ability of an algorithm to identify a highly diverse range of SMMs and quantify them with high accuracy, enabling objective and direct estimation of SMM severity in individual children with ASD.
Insights
An AI algorithm accurately quantifies stereotypical motor movements (SMMs) in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This tool offers objective SMM severity assessment, improving diagnosis and treatment for ASD.
Area of Science:
- Neurodevelopmental Disorders
- Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare
- Behavioral Science
Background:
- Stereotypical motor movements (SMMs) are a core symptom of autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
- Current methods for quantifying SMM severity are subjective and time-consuming, relying on caregiver reports or manual video annotation.
- There is a need for objective and efficient tools to measure SMMs in children with ASD.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate an open-source AI algorithm for analyzing extensive video recordings of children with ASD.
- To automatically identify and quantify heterogeneous SMMs, enabling objective assessment of SMM severity.
- To determine the algorithm's accuracy and correlation with manual annotations.
Main Methods:
- A retrospective cohort study included 241 children with ASD (ages 1.4-8.0 years).
- 580 hours of video footage from behavioral assessments were analyzed using a pose estimation algorithm and a 3D convolutional neural network.
- The algorithm was trained on data from 220 children and tested on data from 21 children.
Main Results:
- The algorithm detected 92.53% of manually annotated SMMs with 66.82% precision in test data.
- Algorithm-identified SMMs showed high correlation with manual annotations for both number (r=0.8) and duration (r=0.88).
- The AI tool demonstrated accuracy in identifying a diverse range of SMMs.
Conclusions:
- The developed AI algorithm can accurately identify and quantify SMMs in children with ASD.
- This technology enables objective and direct estimation of SMM severity.
- The findings support the utility of AI in improving the assessment and understanding of ASD symptoms.
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