A non-homogeneous poisson process model of Skin Conductance Responses integrated with observed regulatory behaviors for Autism intervention

Abstract

Early intervention in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can improve core and associated symptoms and facilitate skills that increase social opportunities. However, determining effective intervention success in this population, and the mechanisms that produce it, is currently restricted to observable behavior. The need of therapy assessment metrics beyond traditional behavioral criteria, led to the use of physiological signals for capturing childtherapist internal dynamics during an intervention session. Internal physiological states were measured through Electrodermal Activity (EDA) and modeled in relation to observed self-and co-regulatory behaviors. A common measure of EDA, Skin Conductance Response (SCR), was the primary signal of interest and assumed to form a non-homogeneous Poisson Process whose rate function is determined by observed regulatory behaviors. Through likelihood and residual goodness of fit analysis, statistical tests and classification tasks, our results indicate that SCR changes and observable behavior in child-therapist dyads are temporally associated and the estimated model parameters can be linked to the types of regulation stimuli.

Using ecological momentary assessment to enhance irritability phenotyping in a transdiagnostic sample of youth

“…There were no significant group comparisons study could be employed in future interventions for pediatric irritability, such as informing clinicians as to the clinical status of their patients to tailor interventions as needed. EMA reports could also be paired with real-time monitoring of youth's physiology and behavior to derive a more complete phenotype of irritability and assess the impact of interventions across levels of analysis (Chaspari et al, 2014;Fletcher et al, 2010). This may be of a particular value in pediatric irritability, which is underserved with respect to evidence-based psychosocial treatments (Kircanski et al, 2018).…”

Using electrodermal activity to recognize ease of engagement in children during social interactions

“…One relevant example is the work of Hedman et al [13], which monitored and visualized the EDA of 22 children with sensory challenges while they used zip lines, jumped in ball pits, and otherwise engaged in occupational therapy services. More recently, Chaspari et al [7] explored the utility of EDA of three children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and their therapists to better quantify the quality of interventions. In comparison with previous studies, the work presented in this paper considers 51 children-adult interactions and is the first to explore physiological synchrony in automating recognition of social engagement.…”

Sparse Representation of Electrodermal Activity With Knowledge-Driven Dictionaries

“…The parameterized nature of the dictionary atoms in our approach can capture SCR characteristics, such as width, rise, and recovery time, which could further lead to more intuitive interpretations of EDA signals in terms of cognitive, social, and emotional stimuli. Data that allow these types of comparisons, including in the context of clinical translation such as therapy for Autism [51], will be explored as part of our future work.…”