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This study aimed to measure tripartite group area using motion capture systems and investigated whether group area could be used as a measure of pre-school children’s social interactions. In Experiment 1, two typically developing girls and an adult staff member engaged in free play. In Experiment 2, two typically developing boys and two adult staff members played balloon volleyball. Both experiments had three types of measures: subjective evaluation of whether participants played together, social behaviours (e.g. eye contact for Experiment 1 and balloon tosses for Experiment 2) and group area. Results showed that group area was significantly and negatively related to subjective evaluation in Experiment 2, whereas we observed no relationship between subjective evaluation and group area in Experiment 1. Overall, however, only a low correlation was observed between subjective evaluation and group area in Experiment 2. Furthermore, there were strong sequential associations between subjective evaluation and social behaviour, rather than between subjective evaluation and group area. Although group area as an index of social interactions is less accurate than behavioural data directly observed by humans, it may be worth using as a low-cost preliminary measure, since it can be automatically calculated using motion capture systems.

The present study examined cerebral hemodynamic responses and functional connectivity during joint attention either initiated by infants (Initiating Joint Attention, IJA condition) or by their partner (Responding to Joint Attention, RJA condition). To capture responses to natural social cues in infants aged 7–12 months using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), we employed an interactive-live paradigm for IJA and RJA. During the measurement, an adult sat facing an infant, and objects, such as small stuffed animals, paired with sound toys were presented to the right or left side of the screen. In the RJA condition, the adult gazed at the infants' eyes and then to the objects to encourage the infants to follow the adult's gaze. On the other hand, in the IJA condition, the adult followed the infant's gaze as it shifted to the presented object. Our results indicate that the concentration of oxy-Hb in the bilateral ventral prefrontal region had significantly decreased, then followed by an increase in the right dorsal prefrontal region in the RJA. In addition, a selective activation in the bilateral dorsal prefrontal region was seen in the IJA condition. Moreover, the infants exhibited increased functional connectivity especially within the right ventral prefrontal region during RJA condition when compared with IJA conditions. These findings suggest that RJA and IJA recruit specific brain networks localized in the prefrontal cortex of infants.

Reinforcement values of facial expressions for visual fixation remain underdeveloped in extant literature, though numerous studies have investigated the function of facial expressions as antecedents of gaze behavior. This study used a concurrent gaze-contingent reinforcement procedure to compare reinforcement values of positive and negative facial expressions for gaze fixation. In total, 7 of the 20 typical adults fixated more frequently on the side that was followed by positive facial expressions. The results suggest that a novel application of eye tracking technology could allow for the evaluation and comparison of reinforcement values of social visual stimuli.

Students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have difficulties in responding to conversation with verbal language. These students often repeat what they hear, and their echoic behavior has a potentially communicative function. We define the echoic behavior when an individual repeats a peer’s topic word with appropriate prosody within 3 s as the child’s echoic conversational response. In this study, we examined the acquisition of the child’s echoic conversational response skills and whether these skills could provide and generalize natural conversation for 4 students with ASD. During the training, students were instructed to imitate the topic word that the experimenter had used in the latest conversation. Students learned the child’s echoic conversational response skills and improved their conversation skills. They even showed a slight generalization for nontraining materials through trainings and improvements in responding with new verbal responses. These findings suggested that expanding speakers’ repertoires for students with ASD might facilitate improvement of natural conversation skills.

In Japan, both typically developing students and students with developmental disabilities often exhibit difficulties with Kanji (Japanese ideogram) writing. These students sometimes demonstrate mirror writing (retrography), suggesting that they have difficulty in locating the parts of Kanji words rather than in writing itself. We examined whether five students with writing difficulties could learn and maintain the stimulus relations among Kanji words, spoken sounds, and corresponding pictures required for writing skills by using two types of pairing procedures: sequential stimulus pairing (SSP) and stimulus pairing (SP). In the SSP procedure, one of the two parts of a Kanji word was presented on the one side of a display, and the other part was sequentially presented on the other side, prior to presentation of the whole Kanji word. In the SP procedure, the whole Kanji word and its spoken sound were presented first, followed by its corresponding picture. The effects of training, as measured by writing performance and the number of training blocks to meet a mastery criterion, were evaluated by means of binominal tests and analysis of variance. The results showed that all students learned to correctly write Kanji words using both procedures, although the SSP procedure required fewer training blocks and enabled students to maintain their knowledge longer. These results suggest that presenting the parts of a stimulus sequentially in their correct spatial location made it easier to observe the Kanji stimuli and might therefore facilitate the acquisition of Kanji writing skills.

This study suggests a novel method to clarify interpersonal proximity from the area occupied by a target person in the visual field. We use the size of the area as an index of interpersonal proximity to support therapeutic activities for the developmental support for children with ASD. We investigate the relationship between physical and interpersonal distance and its proximity as a sense of distance. Head-mounted camera and Mask-RCNN used as the measurement. The pilot experiment shows the possibility of measurement and experimentation in actual therapy showed a difference between interpersonal distance and interpersonal proximity.

Efforts to support the skills of developmental child training/education workers are implemented using visual information captured by nursery teachers, therapists, and children’s intervention work. This paper proposes a highly operable multi-view video browsing interface utilizing a multi-touch input method, which is suitable for users who are unfamiliar with handling devices that require complicated operations. We conduct evolutional questionnaires and request surveys at an actual developmental child training site and propose an interface based on the results. The proposed interface improves the operability and visibility by two approaches. First, we differentiate between the operation methods to reduce the operation errors that occur during image browsing. Second, we introduce image processing to promote the understanding of the presented image. In experimental evaluations, we investigate the video presentation of scenes that users can easily understand and verify the operability improvement of the proposed interface by a comparative experiment using our pilot system.

Background Imitation plays a crucial role in the development of social communication, and it is a skill that is often missing in children with autism spectrum disorder and co-occurring intellectual disabilities. Contingent imitation (CI) results in increased social eye gaze, an imitation cue for children with ASD. A series of studies on Reciprocal Imitation Training (RIT) intervention that included CI has demonstrated an increase in imitation frequency. However, little is known about CI intervention’s effects on motor, object, and vocal imitation accuracy in children with ASD-ID. Method The participants in this study were six 4-year-old children with ASD-ID. A single case experimental design with multiple probes across target behaviors was used to identify CI intervention's efficacy on the motor, object, and vocal imitation. Moreover, pre-and post-assessment analysis evaluated socially engaged imitation and imitation turn-taking. Results Most motor, object, and vocal imitation accuracy increased through the CI intervention. However, individual adaptations such as prompting for looking behaviors and motor responses were required to increase specific target behaviors. Moreover, all children increased socially engaged imitation and imitation turn-taking through CI intervention and CI + prompting intervention. Conclusions CI intervention is an efficacious intervention method for increasing the accuracy of imitation in children with ASD-ID. Furthermore, CI + prompting intervention is effective when CI intervention alone does not improve imitation accuracy. CI + prompting interventions using a decision tree tailored for each child could identify the intervention strategies for improving imitation accuracy during play activities and increase the understanding of ASD-ID children's imitation accuracy difficulties.

Most children can naturally engage in play and by this, develop skills while interacting with their peers and toys. However, children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often show impairments in play skills which result in limited opportunities for interaction with others and the learning of social skills. In this regard, robotic devices/toys that can provide simple and attractive indications are advantageous to engage children with ASD in play activities that require social and interaction skills. This project proposes a new interaction method using paired robotic devices called COLOLO to facilitate a fundamental exchange of intention in communication so-called turn-taking. These tangible devices are designed to sense the user&rsquo, s manipulation, send a message to the paired device, and display visual cues for assisting children to achieve turn-taking through play. On the sessions with COLOLO there are two devices, one held by the therapist and one by the child, and they take turns to manipulate the toys and change their colors. In this article, two experimental conditions or interaction rules: the &ldquo, two-sided lighting rule&rdquo, and the &ldquo, one-sided lighting rule" were introduced. The two interactions rules differ from each on the way the devices used the visual cues to indicate the turn-holder. The effect of each interaction rule on children&rsquo, s turn-taking behaviors was investigated through an experimental study with four children with ASD. From the results, we found that with the one-sided lighting rule participants tended to shift their gaze more and to decrease the failed attempts of turn-taking. The discussion covers the possibilities of using paired devices to describe participants&rsquo, behaviors related to turn-taking quantitatively.

Children with intellectual disabilities (ID) often have difficulty in sentence reading and comprehension. Previous studies have shown that training in segment-unit reading (SUR) facilitates the acquisition of sentence reading comprehension skills for Japanese students with ID. However, it remains unknown whether SUR training is also effective for individuals unable to read sentences and can generalize to untrained sentences. In this study, we examined the improvement and generalization of sentence reading accuracy and comprehension for two children with ID through SUR training with listening comprehensible sentences. During training, the segments were sequentially presented in their correct spatial locations, and participants read them aloud. After the training, participants' reading accuracy and comprehension improved for both trained and untrained sentences. The results suggest that presenting the components of stimuli sequentially in their correct spatial locations is key to facilitating the development of sentence reading accuracy and comprehension for individuals with ID.

This paper presents a novel interface to support video coding of social attention in the assessment of children with autism spectrum disorder. Video-based evaluations of social attention during therapeutic activities allow observers to find target behaviors while handling the ambiguity of attention. Despite the recent advances in computer vision-based gaze estimation methods, fully automatic recognition of social attention under diverse environments is still challenging. The goal of this work is to investigate an approach that uses automatic video analysis in a supportive manner for guiding human judgment. The proposed interface displays visualization of gaze estimation results on videos and provides GUI support to allow users to facilitate agreement between observers by defining social attention labels on the video timeline. Through user studies and expert reviews, we show how the interface helps observers perform video coding of social attention and how human judgment compensates for technical limitations of the automatic gaze analysis.

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) exhibit difficulties in their comprehension of others’ emotions. According to a variety of experimental procedures, many of them can be classified into two types according to the modality of their stimuli and responses. These are intramodal (visual stimulus–visual stimulus) and cross-modal (auditory stimulus–visual stimulus) matching. Previous studies tested both intramodal and cross-modal matching only in adolescents with ASD, although young children with ASD have also been found to have difficulties with cross-modal matching but not intramodal matching. The purpose of this study was to compare the intramodal and cross-modal matching of emotional expression in young children with ASD and typically developing (TD) children. Ten children with ASD aged 4–8 and 22 developmental age (DA)-matched TD children aged 3–6 participated in this study. Pictures of facial expressions were used as visual stimuli, and affective prosodies were used as auditory stimuli. The results showed that the children with ASD were less accurate than the TD children in cross-modal matching but equally accurate on intramodal matching. These findings are discussed along with the modality of stimuli and responses, and the ages of the participants.

Students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have difficulties in learning stimulus relations in spelling. Using the two-stimulus pairing procedure, we examined the emergence of stimulus relations between Japanese and English words by comparing the spelling performance of five students with ASD with that of five typically developing students. In the Japanese-English pairing procedure, a Japanese word was presented first, followed by its English translation, and in the English-Japanese pairing, an English word was presented first, followed by its Japanese translation. Training effects were evaluated with a sign test and analysis of variance. All the students correctly spelled the English words in both procedures. The Japanese-English pairing procedure required fewer training blocks than the English-Japanese pairing procedure. In the Japanese-English pairing, students with ASD required fewer training blocks than typically developing students. These results suggest that presenting already established words (i.e., Japanese) first might better facilitate the emergence of stimulus relations in a stimulus pairing procedure.

We are researching and developing dynamic interpersonal distance models and real-time recognition systems for the social development training therapy of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). In particular, we modeled the quantitative measurements of chasing behaviors observed during therapy. Chasing behaviors are a highly social activity because children need to predict the movement of a partner (therapist). In order to measure these behaviors, the video coding using observational method by experts is needed but it is very time consuming. We consider that establishing models for real-time automated recognition of chasing behavior supports social skills development programs for children with ASD. This study focuses on chasing behavior and presents experimental results for recognition of chasing behavior during actual therapy. The proposed system reveals that it is possible to extract tracking behaviors which closely agree with therapist observations.

Difficulties in understanding others’ emotions have been widely reported in autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Many methodologies for evaluating the emotion recognition can be analyzed by matching-to-sample (MTS) procedures. When using movies of socio-emotional situations as sample stimuli, children with ASD have been found to have difficulties in understanding them. Furthermore, there are few intervention studies that have targeted understanding of socio-emotional situations in children with ASD. The present study examined whether two young children with ASD can acquire the relationships between movies of socio-emotional situations and pictures of facial expressions through computer-based MTS training. The movies of situations and pictures of facial expressions represented happy, surprised, angry and sad emotions. The child with ASD was required to select the picture of facial expression when presented with the movie of socio-emotional situations as a sample stimulus, and if so, whether these skills can be generalized to untrained stimuli. We used a multiple baseline design across participants, and the results demonstrated that both children learned the relationships and improved their performance with untrained stimuli. These findings are discussed in terms of procedures to increase the understanding of others’ emotions at an early developmental stage.

Deficits in comprehension of others’ emotions have been well documented in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). As to variety of methodological procedures, many of them can be analyzed by matching-to-sample (MTS) procedures. When using affective prosody as a sample stimulus, children with ASD have been found to have difficulties with cross-modal MTS, including understanding the relationship between affective prosody (auditory stimulus) and affective illustrations or texts (visual stimulus). Furthermore, several studies have attempted to train the perception of cross-modal processing relationships in older children with high functioning ASD or Asperger's syndrome. The purpose of the present study was to examine whether four young children with ASD (mean age, 5 years 6 months) could be taught the relationships between affective prosody and facial expression via cross-modal MTS training and, if so, whether or not this skills generalized to novel stimuli. A multiple baseline design across participants was implemented. Results showed that all four of the children acquired the cross-modal emotion relationships and generalized this learned relationship to the perception of untrained stimuli. These findings are discussed in terms of the procedures to increase the understanding of the richness of other's emotions at an early developmental stage.

Japanese students with developmental disabilities often exhibit difficulties in reading, particularly in Kanji (ideogram) reading, and in acquiring the equivalence relations between pictures, written words, and sounds. Previous research suggested that one student with autism could acquire Kanji reading along with equivalence relations through stimulus pairing training. However, maintenance rates tended to be very low, possibly due to the lack of picture stimuli. In this study, we examined the acquisition and maintenance of Kanji reading skills through stimulus pairing training using corresponding pictures for six students with developmental disabilities. We prepared stimulus pairs consisting of picture stimuli that the students could name along with a corresponding Kanji character that they could not read. All students successfully acquired and maintained the Kanji reading skills through this procedure. These findings suggest that the nameability of picture stimuli in stimulus pairing training may facilitate the acquisition and maintenance of equivalence relations for reading.

For most of students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and Williams syndrome (WS), a rare genetic neurodevelopmental disorder, are known to have intellectual disabilities (ID). Students with ID often show the difficulties in reading. Especially, they are difficult to acquire the equivalence relations among pictures, written letters, and sounds and to have fluent eye movement during reading. Previous research suggested that a student with autism acquired Kanji reading skills by using stimulus pairing training. However, for acquiring word reading skills, new training which facilitates the fluent eye movement is necessary and we developed sequential stimulus pairing training. In the present study, we examined the acquisition of word reading skills through sequential stimulus pairing training for three students with ID who were also diagnosed as WS and three students with ID who were not diagnosed with WS. In a trial, each letters, the word, spoken sound, and picture were presented sequentially. With 6 students, result indicated that they could acquire the word reading skills, and also showed the improvement of their eye movement in reading. The result suggested sequential stimulus pairing training is effective to acquire both equivalence relations and fluent eye movement for wide range of students with ID.

In natural settings, infants learn spoken language with the aid of a caregiver who explicitly provides social signals. Although previous studies have demonstrated that young infants are sensitive to these signals that facilitate language development, the impact of real-life interactions on early word segmentation and word-object mapping remains elusive. We tested whether infants aged 5-6 months and 9-10 months could segment a word from continuous speech and acquire a word-object relation in an ecologically valid setting. In Experiment 1, infants were exposed to a live tutor, while in Experiment 2, another group of infants were exposed to a televised tutor. Results indicate that both younger and older infants were capable of segmenting a word and learning a word-object association only when the stimuli were derived from a live tutor in a natural manner, suggesting that real-life interaction enhances the learning of spoken words in preverbal infants.

Engaging and motivational toys used during therapies for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) need to be combined with the appropriated evaluation methods. Technology can provide the therapists with tools to facilitate the analysis of the interventions. In this paper we propose a model using paired devices with three different interaction rules made to facilitate turn-taking behaviors. These rules are evaluated in succession using identical spherical devices with simple visual cues designed to mediate turn-taking interaction between children and therapists. The results explored the potential of paired devices with embedded sensors as a method not only to engage children in the activity, but also to measure social cues that describe children performance. The evaluation of the proposed interaction model was used to provide insights for future implementations of paired devices for training turn-taking.

Several studies have suggested that contingent adult imitation increase nonverbal communication, such as attention and proximity to adults, in children with autism spectrum disorders. However, few studies have shown the effect of contingent imitation on verbal communication. This study examined whether children with autism were able to promote verbal interaction such as vocal imitation, vocalization, and vocal turn-taking via contingent imitation. We used an alternating treatment design composed of the conditions of contingent imitation and control for six children with autism (aged 33–63 months). For contingent imitation condition, adults imitated children’s vocalization immediately. For control condition, adults did not imitate but gave a vocal response immediately. Results showed that in contingent imitation condition, all children increased the number of vocal imitations and vocal turn-takings compared with control condition. The number of vocalizations increased in both condition for all children. Overall, it is suggested that all children promote verbal interaction via contingent imitation.

Reciprocal inhibition of antagonist muscles is crucial for motor skill learning in humans. However, the changes in reciprocal inhibition function during the motor learning process are unknown. The aim of this study was to systematically observe the changes in reciprocal inhibition function. We investigated the optimal coil position for simultaneously eliciting motor evoked potentials (MEPs) of reciprocal muscles, and the reciprocal changes in input-output (IO) curves during motor skill training. From ten healthy volunteers, the IO curves of MEPs were measured for the midpoint between the center of gravity (CoG) of the extensor carpi radialis (ECR) and the flexor carpi radialis (FCR) muscles, for the CoG of ECR, and for the FCR muscles using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). In addition, the IO curves of the ECR and the FCR muscles were measured before and after the motor skill training of rapid wrist extension. The IO curves measured at the midpoint between the CoGs of the ECR and the FCR muscles and the CoG of each muscle were homogenous. However, after training to perform rapid wrist extension, the IO curve of the agonist (ECR) muscle was increased, while the antagonist (FCR) muscle was decreased. The present findings validate the IO curves simultaneously measured for reciprocal muscles, and suggest that motor skill training could induce reciprocal change in corticospinal excitability.

AlN/diamond heterojunction field effect transistors with p-channel and normally-on depletion mode are developed, and the device performance is improved by reducing the contact resistances at source and drain contacts reported previously. The heterojunction structure is constructed from a c-axis-oriented AlN epilayer grown on oxygen-terminated (111) diamond substrate by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy at temperatures as high as 1250 °C. Thermal treatment in the mixed hydrogen (H2) and ammonia atmosphere just before AlN growth improves the AlN adhesion to diamond surface. In addition, this treatment simultaneously produces a much larger surface hole-carrier density than that obtained by conventional H2-plasma treatment. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy reveals the existence of carbon-nitrogen bonds at the diamond surface, and these may be responsible for such a large hole density. These results are promising in relation to new opportunities for developing diamond-based power electronic devices.

This paper reports the microstructural analysis of 20-μm-thick Al0.5Ga0.5N with improved crystalline quality owing to the use of a Mg-doped AlN underlying layer. The threading dislocation density in 20-μm-thick Al0.5Ga0.5N on Mg-doped AlN was 8.6×108cm-2, which is about one-fifth lower than that of Al0.5Ga0.5N on an undoped AlN underlying layer. The microstructural analysis was carried out to clarify dislocation behaviours in the Al0.5Ga0.5N layer on the Mg-doped AlN underlying layer. (© 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Japanese students, who study English as second language often have the difficulty in learning English. Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) have special difficulty with English spelling. Previous researches suggest that equivalence-based training, such as the matching-to-sample (MTS) procedure and the constructional response matching-to-sample (CRMTS) procedure were effective for the acquisition of spelling. The present study examined the controlling variables for the acquisition of English spelling skills by 4 Japanese students with ASD and compared the effects of MTS and CRMTS procedures on transfer to spelling. The results showed that the MTS and CRMTS procedures were equally effective for shorter letter words. But the students showed better results on acquisition and transfer to spelling for longer letter words after CRMTS procedure. The results are discussed in terms of the effect of the CRMTS procedure on the acquisition and transfer of spelling words.

The production mechanism for interstellar silicon compounds SiCN, its isomer SiNC, hydrogen cyanide HCN and its isomer HNC from the neutral–neutral reactions SiN + CH and SiC + NH was studied using ab initio molecular dynamics. Classical trajectories were calculated by the direct dynamics simulation technique at the B3LYP/6-311++G(d, p) level of theory. Reaction channels were checked by single-point energy calculations on intermediates and transition states at the B3LYP/6-311++G(3df, 3pd) level of theory and by intrinsic reaction coordinate calculations on reaction coordinates at the B3LYP/6-311++G(d, p) level of theory. More than 100 trajectories were integrated for both reactions. We confirmed that the reaction SiN + CH mostly produces SiNC and HCN, and the reaction SiC + NH mostly produces HNC and SiNH. The reaction processes were examined from the viewpoint of minimum energy path.

In early training for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), matching-to-sample (MTS) tasks are widely used to teach various language and cognitive skills. However, some problems in conducting MTS training for children with developmental disabilities are also recognized. In this study, we examined the effectiveness of stimulus pairing training as a training procedure for children with ASDs. Two boys with ASDs participated in this study. During the stimulus pairing training trial, the children observed only two corresponding stimuli were paired successively. Participant's learning as a result of stimulus pairing training was assessed by MTS tests, which were conducted immediately after the training. In this study, visual–visual and visual–auditory stimulus relations were trained in stimulus pairing training. As a result, both participants could learn the stimulus relations by stimulus pairing training. The effectiveness and efficiency of the pairing training procedure and some issues to be considered in applying this procedure for children with ASDs are discussed.

The production mechanism for interstellar ion HOC + and its isomer HCO + from the ion–molecule reaction H 2 O + C + was studied using ab initio molecular dynamics. Classical trajectories were calculated by the direct dynamics simulation technique introduced by Takayanagi and Taketsugu (2006) [17] at the B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p) level of theory. The accuracy of the B3LYP-level potential-energy surface was checked by comparison with more accurate CCSD-level calculations. More than 200 trajectories were integrated, and it was confirmed that the reaction H 2 O + C + mostly produces HOC + , even though the energy level of HCO + is lower than that of HOC + .

Students with developmental disabilities often have difficulty with writing skills such as tracing, copying, and dictation writing. A student with writing difficulties participated in the present study, which used computer-based teaching applied in the home. We examined whether a student could copy Japanese Kanji characters after training with a constructed response matching-to-sample (CRMTS) procedure. The procedure was designed to teach identity Kanji construction. The results showed that the student not only acquired the constructed responses through this procedure but also to spelling generalized to copy trained and untrained Kanji characters. The results are discussed in terms of the effect of the CRMTS procedure on the acquisition and transfer of writing characters and the applicability of computer-based home teaching. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.