Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics

AHFE 2018: Advances in Human Factors and Ergonomics in Healthcare and Medical Devices pp 15–22Cite as

Soft-Brush: A Novel Tendon Driven Tactile Stimulator for Affective Touch in Children with Autism

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:

  • 952 Accesses

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 779))

Abstract

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is a prevalent developmental disorder and is associated with high familial and societal cost. Early interventions during the first year can have the best developmental outcomes despite the fact that the earliest diagnosis of ASD is only possible by the age of two. Investigating brain response to basic stimuli like sight, smell and touch has proved to have the potential to find markers between individuals with ASD and their neurotypical peers during infancy. Since existing tactile stimulus delivering method tend to suffer from low accuracy, low availability and low tolerability, it is necessary to develop a precise, high-tolerable tactile stimulus delivering mechanism. The present study examined the feasibility and tolerability of Soft-Brush, a comfortable, mobile silicone tactile stimulator with tendon-driven mechanism, for delivering tactile stimulus in multisensory studies. Experiments have shown that Soft-Brush has high tolerance rate by the children during experiments resulting in reliable data collection.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Center for Disease Control (CDC): Community Report on Autism (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Horlin, C., Falkmer, M., Parsons, R., Albrecht, M.A., Falkmer, T.: The cost of autism spectrum disorders. PLoS One 9(9), e106552 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Zwaigenbaum, L., Bauman, M.L., Stone, W.L., Yirmiya, N., Estes, A., Hansen, R.L., McPartland, J.C., et al.: Early identification of autism spectrum disorder: recommendations for practice and research. Pediatrics 136(Supplement 1), S10–S40 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Veenstra-VanderWeele, J., Warren, Z.: Intervention in the context of development: pathways toward new treatments. Neuropsychopharmacology 40(1), 225 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Germani, T., Zwaigenbaum, L., Bryson, S., Brian, J., Smith, I., Roberts, W., Szatmari, P., et al.: Brief report: assessment of early sensory processing in infants at high-risk of autism spectrum disorder. J. Autism Dev. Disord. 44(12), 3264–3270 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Brauer, J., Xiao, Y., Poulain, T., Friederici, A.D., Schirmer, A.: Frequency of maternal touch predicts resting activity and connectivity of the developing social brain. Cereb. Cortex 26, 3544–3552 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Triscoli, C., Olausson, H., Sailer, U., Ignell, H., Croy, I.: CT-optimized skin stroking delivered by hand or robot is comparable. Front. Behav. Neurosci. 7, 208 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Löken, L.S., Olausson, H.: The skin as a social organ. Exp. Brain Res. 204, 305–314 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Fairhurst, M.T., Löken, L., Grossmann, T.: Physiological and behavioral responses reveal 9-month-old infants’ sensitivity to pleasant touch. Psychol. Sci. 25, 1124–1131 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Bian, D., Zheng, Z., Swanson, A., Weitlauf, A., Warren, Z., Sarkar, N.: Design of a multisensory stimulus delivery system for investigating response trajectories in infancy. In: International Conference on Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction, pp. 471–480. Springer, Cham (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Elder, D.E., Russell, L., Sheppard, D., Purdie, G.L., Campbell, A.J.: Car seat test for preterm infants: comparison with polysomnography. Arch. Dis. Child. Fetal Neonatal Ed. 92(6), F468–F472 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Bretherton, I.: Making friends with one-year-olds: an experimental study of infant-stranger interaction. Merrill-Palmer Q. Behav. Dev. 24(1), 29–51 (1978)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Croy, I., Geide, H., Paulus, M., Weidner, K., Olausson, H.: Affective touch awareness in mental health and disease relates to autistic traits–an explorative neurophysiological investigation. Psychiatry Res. 245, 491–496 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all the participants and their families for their time and participation. We would also like to thank Simeng Zhao for helping hardware development for this study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

    Zhaobo K. Zheng & Nilanjan Sarkar

  2. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

    Dayi Bian & Nilanjan Sarkar

  3. Department of Pediatrics, Vanderbilt Univerisity, Nashville, TN, USA

    Amy Weitlauf & Zachary Warren

  4. Department of Psychiatry, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

    Zachary Warren

  5. Treatment and Research Institute of Autism Spectrum Disorders (TRIAD), Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

    Amy Swanson, Amy Weitlauf & Zachary Warren

Authors
  1. Zhaobo K. Zheng
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Dayi Bian
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Amy Swanson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Amy Weitlauf
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Zachary Warren
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Nilanjan Sarkar
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zhaobo K. Zheng .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Veterans Affairs - Center for Applied Systems Engineering, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

    Nancy J. Lightner

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Zheng, Z.K., Bian, D., Swanson, A., Weitlauf, A., Warren, Z., Sarkar, N. (2019). Soft-Brush: A Novel Tendon Driven Tactile Stimulator for Affective Touch in Children with Autism. In: Lightner, N. (eds) Advances in Human Factors and Ergonomics in Healthcare and Medical Devices. AHFE 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 779. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94373-2_2

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation