TPL 3

10/3/20

Fork in the Road

Looking into two areas of use for the facial tracking application:

Virtual Improv theatre or Behavioral Science

In Behavioral Science:

Echoics:

Remote Vocal Imitation/ABA treatment- Using the facial tracking application, therapy could be done remotely and be done with a more preferred face for kids with autism. I went and did another pass with one of faces that looked like the Popeye character. I figured the abstract face would not quite make sense for an echoic treatment.

Using the application LiveLink

Trying out other faces:

The Popeye cartoon face

This is the cartoon boy that Unreal provides

In the field of Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) and Speech Pathology, having a live virtual avatar would be beneficial for the current times we are facing right now. Remote treatment will have to adapt to the needs and specifications of each child. Having a customized avatar that the child can engage with is a concept I am highly interested in. Most ABA therapy treats children with ASD who are not use to seeing and meeting people at times. They have different sensations when they have to engage in communication with people around them. I think that by having an intermediate avatar would help ease the child into treatment procedures and will elicit a longer engagement time.

Problem areas to focus on in ABA field:

• ABA therapy can’t do in-home treatment
• Child not use to seeing new people
• Kids on the spectrum have trouble communicating to us
• Remote teaching has been difficult for some teachers
• Kids on the spectrum are highly motivated to engage with iPads and apps

Solutions that the app might provide:

• Virtual therapist that can be customized to look like anyone or thing
• Remote therapy, no longer will need to physically do treatment at a home
• Kids will be using a device they associate with play, which will increase more interest into doing treatment, making it somewhat “fun”

In Virtual Improv:

Nick has been in contact with another contact at the RLab. The person who is interested in doing virtual improv is willing to produce a similar project with Nick Mestad who came in last week.

This virtual improv could be something that might be developing into a larger project. I wanted this to be a short film, but now with this new person on board, they might want to produce in another way that might have a different vision than mine. I might have to table this path and focus on the behavioral science side of the development of how to use the app.