Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are the second most prevalent neurodevelopment disorder among children and they affect 1 over 160 children worldwide.
ASD are, at present, usually diagnosed when a child is 2.5-4 years old, even if parents of children later diagnosed with ASD recall early signs of impairments of social attention in the first months of life, such as difficulties in paying attention to eye gaze and faces.
Early behavioural interventions increase the possibilities for people affected by ASD to live an independent and productive life, thus raising their, and their families, happiness and wellbeing. Evidence that infants and children benefit from early behavioural interventions has placed early detection and immediate treatment as a major health care priority.
The idea that guides the development of a Mobile Visual Stimulation device, nicknamed MoViS, arises from recent results showing that impairments in inborn preferences to visual social stimuli, such as faces and biological motion patterns, can be recognised as early as birth by screening newborns with a specific set of tests of looking time visual preferences. The Neonatal Neuroimaging Unit team at University of Trento, under the supervision of Prof. Giorgio Vallortigara, developed a non-invasive screening procedure that informs clinicians by tracking looking times during visual stimulation of the baby. Such methods can help build behavioural biomarkers that discriminate babies at low-risk for ASD and babies at high-risk for ASD.
This method has been first tested and proved in a controlled sample of 20 high-risk babies (cases) and 20 low-risk babies (controls) but a much larger clinical trial is currently underway with follow-up at 4 months of age as part of the MoVis project.
The researchers of Project MoViS studied and crafted the images and videos used for stimulation, by carefully designing the timing, the order and the modality of the visual presentation. Within this framework arose the concept of a device to deliver visual stimulation to newborns in a controlled environment where ambient lighting does not interfere with the visual stimulation and where the visual stimulation is kept controlled The researchers partnered with experts in new technologies from Needius, a company developing technological solutions for special needs and with publishing company Erickson, who expressed interest in dissemination and commercialisation of the method. Researchers and entrepreneurs envisioned a baby’s cockpit, a design based on an ergonomic car seat, or a baby carrier, equipped with two high-resolution 13 inches monitors and a video camera, focused on the baby’s gaze, to capture eyes movements and their duration. At the same time a custom software for stimuli presentation and simultaneous video recording has been developed.
