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About this paper symposium
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| Panel 5. Developmental Disabilities |
| Paper #1 | |
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| Wearable sensors can track social interaction in groups of autistic and non-autistic children | |
| Author information | Role |
| Antonia Hamilton, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, United Kingdom | Presenting author |
| Jamie A Ward, Department of Computing, Goldsmiths University of London, United Kingdom | Non-presenting author |
| Yanke Sun, Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University College London, United Kingdom | Non-presenting author |
| Maria Bell, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, United Kingdom | Non-presenting author |
| Thomas Gilbert, Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University College London, United Kingdom | Non-presenting author |
| Sally Day, Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University College London, United Kingdom | Non-presenting author |
| Abstract | |
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People often spontaneously synchronise with one other during social interactions, but this synchrony may be weaker in autism (McNaughton & Redcay, 2020). There are few methods available for measuring social synchrony outside the lab, which makes it hard to know what natural patterns of synchrony should look like. Here we present SocSensors, a system that uses wearable sensors to evaluate interpersonal synchrony, and use it to uncover social behaviours in young autistic people with learning difficulties. We used wrist-worn accelerometers to collect data from the interactions of 3 groups of children and adults taking part in school activities including autistic children aged 5-6, autistic children aged 12-17, and neurotypical children aged 4-5 (Figure 1). We develop wavelet-based method to calculate interpersonal synchrony between all possible pairings of children and adults in each session, and propose an optimal combination of wavelet-coherence and cross-wavelet measures. We compare our sensor measures to blind independent video ratings of social engagement and find a clear positive correlation, which validates the use of sensors for in-the-wild studies of social behaviour in autism. We then use a pseudo-data analysis to identify times in each session when a pair is interacting more than chance which we label the time-interacting value (TIV). The output of this analysis provides a robust and a convenient way to estimate social engagement that can be compared across sessions and across children. Our analysis first asks if our sensor recordings reflect individual differences in social behaviour. In the neurotypical children, interactions in session 1 correlated closely with interactions in session 2 (4 weeks later), demonstrating consistent individual differences in social behaviour (Figure 2A, p<0.0001 for adult-child and p<0.01 for child-child interactions). This means that the sensors can provide meaningful individual-level data. Second, we test for group differences in social sensor measures. We find that neurotypical children showed more interaction then compared to young or older autistic children (Figure 2B, ANOVA: F =160.0, df = 4,456, p<0.001) and when compared to adults (Figure 2C; ANOVA: F = 124.6, df = 5,255, p<0.001). We can further explore a variety of ways to visualise these data in relation to social network graphs and task-related comparisons. These analyses illustrate the range of questions where SocSensors can provide answers, including quantifying individual differences in social behaviour, uncovering social relationships within a group, and uncovering group differences of interpersonal coordination between autistic and neurotypical children. We propose that using social wearable sensors and advanced analytics can open a pathway to new ways of understanding the development of social interaction and social synchrony in real world contexts. |
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| Paper #2 | |
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| Children’s Social Preference for Teachers versus Peers in Autism Inclusion Classrooms: An Objective Perspective | |
| Author information | Role |
| Madison Drye, University of Miami, United States | Presenting author |
| Chitra Banarjee, University of Central Florida; University of Miami, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Lynn K Perry, University of Miami, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Alyssa Viggiano, University of Miami, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Dwight Irvin, University of Florida, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Daniel Messinger, University of Miami, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Abstract | |
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In inclusive preschools, children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other developmental disabilities (DD) engage differently with peers than typically developing (TD) children (Banarjee et al., 2023). However, there is limited objective information describing how children with ASD engage with teachers, or how children’s teacher engagement compares to engagement with peers. We used wearable sensors to track over 750 hours’ worth of children’s (N = 77; N[ASD] = 24, N[DD] = 23, N[TD] = 30; M[age] = 48.26 months) and teachers’ (N = 12) locations and orientations across eight inclusion preschool classrooms to quantify child-teacher and child-peer social engagement. Two primary dimensions of social interaction were calculated for each child: social approach velocity, or how quickly children approach and are approached by teachers or peers, and time in social contact, or the proportion of classroom time spent interacting with a partner. We hypothesized that children with ASD would exhibit different social approach and social contact patterns than TD children. We then calculated social preference by examining differences in children's approach behaviors and contact duration with teachers versus peers, anticipating that children with ASD would show a heightened preference for teacher engagement over peer engagement compared to children with TD. Multilevel models revealed that children with ASD approached teachers–-but not peers—more quickly than children with TD (p[teachers] < .001, p[peers] = .043), and children with ASD were approached more quickly by teachers and more slowly by peers than children with TD (p[teachers] < .001, p[peers] = .006). Children with ASD spent a lower proportion of class time in social contact with peers (p < .001) and did not differ from children with TD in their proportion of class time in social contact with teachers (p = .133). Overall, compared to children with TD, children with ASD showed a greater preference for approaching (p < .001), being approached by (p < .001), and being in social contact with teachers (relative to peers; p = .001). No significant differences were observed for any measure between children with DD and children in either the TD or ASD eligibility groups (see Table 1, Figure 1). All univariate measures of social engagement were positively related in the study, highlighting the potential of objective tools to quantify social engagement in the classroom setting. Overall, children with ASD exhibited a heightened preference for engaging with teachers over peers compared to their classmates with TD. These findings underscore the crucial role of teachers as facilitators of social interaction in inclusive classroom settings and re-emphasize the need for classroom-based interventions that emphasize social engagement for children with ASD. Leveraging objective measures, this study advances our understanding of social engagement patterns during the preschool years, shedding light on the role of real-time preferential engagement with peers and teachers in shaping the social experiences of children with and without ASD. |
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| Paper #3 | |
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| Objective Measures of Time Spent Apart from Others in Inclusive Preschool Classrooms for Autism | |
| Author information | Role |
| Michael Siller, Ph.D., Emory School of Medicine; Marcus Autism Center, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta; University of North Texas, United States | Presenting author |
| Daniel Messinger, University of Miami, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Debasish Sarker, University of Miami, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Chaoming Song, University of Miami, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Lynn Perry, University of Miami, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Brooke Schirmer, Emory School of Medicine; Marcus Autism Center, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta; Georgia State University, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Lindee Morgan, Emory School of Medicine; Marcus Autism Center, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta; Georgia College & State University, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Scott Gillespie, Emory School of Medicine, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Abstract | |
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Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show characteristic deficits in social interaction and engagement. Preschool classrooms and other natural environments where interactions occur with peers provide a unique context for development. Importantly, the sole act of placing a child with autism in a classroom with typically developing peers does not guarantee that social interaction occurs. Capturing the proportion of learning time that autistic children spend without social contact with peers and teachers may provide an important indicator to determine whether a specific inclusion classroom adequately supports the social learning needs of a given child with autism. Unfortunately, scalable methods for measuring this indicator do not exist. Available methods are based on classroom observation; but large-scale adoption of observational methods is not practical because they are time consuming to learn and implement, and do not allow for continuous, simultaneous capture of multiple children at the same time. The current research employed modern location tracking technology to collect second-by-second measurements of children’s interpersonal distance in inclusion preschool classrooms. Computational methods from statistical physics were used to derive continuous, objective measures of the % classroom time without social contact with peers and teachers’ (% no contact). Data were collected across two school years in three age-grouped classrooms of a university-affiliated inclusion preschool focused on autism (i.e., classrooms for 2-, 3-, and 4-year-olds). The sample included N = 61 children, including 24 children with ASD; n = 16 children attended the program across two school years (Table 1). During each school year, objective measures were collected on 3-4 consecutive days during fall, winter, and spring. On each day, data were collected during two free-play periods, in the classroom and on the playground. In total, we collected 519 and 454 location tracking measures in the classroom and on the playground, respectively. Repeated objective measures of % no contact were evaluated as outcome using general linear mixed effects regression models (Table 2). Intraclass Correlation Coefficients revealed that individual differences in % no contact were stable across three repeated observation days (ICC = .83) and across three repeated data collection waves (fall, winter, spring; ICC = .79). In contrast, measures collected in the classroom and on the playground evidenced relatively low levels of consistency (ICC = .37). Across both diagnostic groups, results from fixed effects analyses revealed that % no contact was significantly higher on the playground, 30.8% (29.1%, 32.6%), compared to the classroom, 6.8% (5.0%, 8.5%), p < .001. Moreover, classroom measures of % no contact were significantly higher for children with ASD, 9.8% (5.0%, 8.5%), compared to children without ASD, 4.9% (2.9%, 6.8%), p < .01. Similarly, fixed effects analyses for playground measures of % no contact were significantly higher for children with ASD, 35.6% (33.1%, 38.2%), compared to children without ASD, 27.9% (25.8%, 29.9%), p < .001. Results from this research demonstrate the concurrent validity of objective measures to capture the proportion of time children with autism spend physically apart from peers and teachers in inclusive preschool classrooms. |
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| Paper #4 | |
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| Feeling socially connected in autistic & allistic children; Can sensors indicate social connectedness at school playgrounds | |
| Author information | Role |
| Dr. Carolien Rieffe, Leiden University; University of Twente; University College London, Netherlands | Presenting author |
| Yung-Ting Tsou, Leiden University; National Tsing Hua University, Netherlands; Taiwan | Non-presenting author |
| Jiayin Zhao, Leiden University, Netherlands | Non-presenting author |
| Charlotte Hu, University of Twente, Netherlands | Non-presenting author |
| Mitra Baratchi, Leiden University, Netherlands | Non-presenting author |
| Alexander Koutamanis, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands | Non-presenting author |
| Dennis Reidsma, University of Twente, Netherlands | Non-presenting author |
| Abstract | |
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The school playground is the place for children to meet, socialize, make friends, play games, have arguments and make up again. Through these social interactions during their informal time at school, children develop a sense of connectedness with the school that they have to attend on a daily basis. Yet different children have different capacities, needs, and desires in terms of socialization and feeling connected to their peers. Whereas some children like to be at the center of a peer group, and have or want many friends, others might prefer to stay at the outskirts of a group, or perhaps need some quite time by themselves to relax and recharge. To examine the extent to which these individual differences are related to children’s playground behaviors and their subsequent feelings of loneliness, we designed a study including autistic children and non-autistic (allistic) children, who were attending Dutch special education primary schools (8-14 years). During their recess time on school playgrounds, children wore proximity sensors (Radio Frequency Identification Devices, RFID), that measure the number of face-to-face contacts and duration for each child in an unobtrusive and objective way. Additionally, children reported their preferred classmates to play with (peer nominations), and their feelings of loneliness (i.e., lack of social connectedness) in school (self-report questionnaires). Outcomes showed similar levels of loneliness between the two groups (U = 1904.50, p = .091). Yet, lower feelings of loneliness were related to more time in social peer-contact during recess for the allistic children (rho = -.39, p < .001), but not the autistic children. For the autistic children, it was more important to be seen and to be liked by their classmates (rho = -.36, p = .002). These findings coincide with case reports by autistic pupils saying that they want to feel welcome and connected, but do not necessarily need to interact a lot with their peers. In this presentation we will also briefly discuss how a more inclusive playground design can facilitate and value these individual differences so that all children can feel welcomed at their school. |
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Tracking Social Dynamics: Objective Measurement of Movement and Interaction in Children with and without ASD
Submission Type
Paper Symposium
Description
| Session Title | Tracking Social Dynamics: Objective Measurement of Movement and Interaction in Children with and without ASD |