It is challenging for the caretakers of people with autism when an aggressive outburst begins. To remedy this, a scientist and his team created a wearable device that could predict an oncoming outburst a minute before it even starts.

Aggressive Outbursts In People With Autism

People with autism are more prone to outbursts because their resting stress levels are higher compared to that of people without autism. This is challenging for the people themselves as well as for their caregivers, and what makes it harder is that people with autism typically find it difficult to explain what it is that is causing them distress.

This often causes strain because parents and carers of people with autism worry that these outbursts could happen any time and anywhere so they opt to just stay home instead of going out with their children.

Wearable Outburst Predictor

In a test involving 20 children who are prone to aggressive outbursts, behavioral scientist Matthew Goodwin of Northeastern University and his team of researchers observed the children for 87 hours. In that time, they monitored each aggressive episode and tracked the physiological changes happening in them before, during, and after the outburst using wearable biosensors.

Based on the data they gathered, researchers were able to predict aggressive outbursts a minute in advance with 84 percent accuracy, an impressive number that Goodwin is even considering a limitation of the study because of the small sample set. With future plans of expanding the data set to 240 individuals and using more sophisticated machine learning models, Goodwin is hoping to extend the prediction to more than 60 seconds before the outburst.

‘Priceless’

With further tests in the works, Goodwin is hoping to remove carers’ fears of outbursts and being caught off-guard. With the device, they may be able to calm the person down and hopefully prevent the outburst before it even begins.

“Some parents say that even if we can only give them 60 percent accuracy, that’s better than chance, which is what they’ve got now. They say that would be priceless,” Goodwin said.