Compared to other populations, individuals with autism tend to have more challenges with processing sensory input as well as motor coordination. In general, children with autism exhibit numerous sensorimotor impairments and may have poor motor control defaulting their ability to appropriately redirect their movements to respond to sensory stimuli. For...

During face-to-face conversations, adults with autism frequently use atypical rhythms and sounds in their speech (prosody), which can result in misunderstandings and miscommunication. Atypical prosody is one of the most noticeable characteristics of autism —making speakers inadvertently sound angry, bored, or tired. It is also one of the most difficult...

Visual devices can support strategies for behavior management of children with behavioral challenges. However, existing tools are often static, rarely configurable, and tend to focus only on individual behavior. In this project we explore the use of interactive surfaces to support teamwork and cooperation in children with behavioral challenges through...

In Mexico, 34% of children are obese and overweight. During the last years, the incidence of obesity and overweight in young children (2 – 4 years old) is growing up. Sedentary lifestyles, poor nutrition, and lack of exercise adherence affect young children quality life, and motor skills development. Appropriate exercise...

As the world population is becoming predominantly urban, is of particular interest for authorities and planners to measure the pulse of the cities, because it allows to propose regulations, politics and solutions to problems with a deep economic, environmental, and public health impact in the domain of the urban mobility....

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/msr_er/archive/2013/06/11/microsoft-research-gives-promising-computer-science-faculty-a-boost.aspx

Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) or dyspraxia is either a marked or serious impairment in the development of motor coordination that significantly interferes with academic achievement, daily living skills, or both. Motor difficulties might arise from poor planning, and lack of understanding or cognitive difficulties in associating a task with movements....

Last week (Friday 8 3/13 and Saturday 9 3/13) I attended to the 4th workshop uniting the Californias hosted by the STAR group at UC Irvine This workshop born with the idea of bringing together groups of scientists, who are desirable close geographically, and working from a variety of disciplines all...

 private webpage:  Children with autism have sensory processing disorders impairing their ability of having awareness of their body and movements  so they frequently exhibit “atypical” body-interactions they use as “compensatory movements” helping them to have some sense of agency when interacting with the world.  In this project, we explore how tangible...

private webpage:  Building upon our prior work and using the results from participatory design sessions we present the design of two mechanisms enabling the multi-modal interaction with social networking sites. Tlatoque + Ubisketch UbiSketch, a ubiquitous real-time sketch-based communication tool, supporting information sharing and social communication based on natural interactions...

private webpage:  Social networking sites (SNSs) provide users ambient awareness of the interests and activities of friends and relatives helping them sustain and strengthen social ties. Older adults who are not adopting SNSs might however feel like outsiders of their own families who increasingly rely on these services to socialize....

private webpage:  Autism is associated with impairments of attention, memory and information processing. For children with autism impairments there is difficult to remember and identify real objects. Teachers prompt children with autism to redirect their attention to the object discrimination training and reduce the time they spend “off task”. Technological interventions that...

Autism is characterized by social skills impairments. Children with autism exhibit problems when initiating and terminating interactions, learning the interests of others, and joining social groups. Direct instructions for skill acquisition are an effective way to teach them social skills, helping to cope with these social challenges.   The Social...

 private webpage:  La llegada de un bebé a una nueva familia requiere de un proceso de adaptación en la vida de los nuevos padres. Una de las mayores dificultades de este proceso de adaptación es entender el “lenguaje” del bebé.  Dunstan propuso un método que sugiere analizar los patrones de ruidos...

private webpage:  Interventions to support individuals with autism to provide step-by-step guidance often involve the use visual supports (i.e., those things we see that enhance the communication process) that sometimes use words, images, or tangible objects to represent activities that will take place (or have taken place) arranged in temporal...

 private webpage:  Cognitive therapies use traditional objects to teach children with autism age appropriate cognitive skills. During cognitive therapies children with autism often loose attention, and caregivers invest a lot of time in engaging them with the therapy providing frequent prompting while maintaining a detailed record of children’s progress, and...