Developing AI and wearable technologies for autistic residents in care homes: carer’s perceptions and experiences

Some autistic people require substantial emotional and physical support and one solution is a residential living placement. The person may display challenging behaviour, but due to being non-verbal, having poor interception or emotional literacy, the individual may be unable to communicate the reason for their heightened arousal and distress. It is hoped that by using technology, carers gain greater contextual information that enables them to intervene earlier during the arousal cycle, improving the autistic person’s well-being.

This paper aims to better understand the needs of caregivers when developing and introducing technology to predict challenging behaviour and how to optimize carer and user acceptance of new technology. The research is novel in gaining caregiver’s perceptions of wearables and AI for distress detection in residential autism care.

The single case study approach involved 6 care staff from a residential care service in the UK who support a severely autistic person with challenging behaviour. A descriptive qualitative design was chosen to gather care staff’s perceptions and experiences of the challenges of delivering care and on the use of technology in care services. Semi-structured online video calls were used to conduct interviews.

Overall, care staff were supportive of the introduction of new technologies that have the potential to improve care and resident well-being. Care staff were interested in data associated with potential causes of distress and requested prompts for secondary prevention techniques to standardise their care approach. Care staff already used time-series data from an electronic health record to understand the potential cause of distress.

Appropriate training is required for care staff when introducing new technologies. Consideration of type of wearable and software accessibility are crucial for good acceptance. Varying levels of information must be displayed based on individual staff’s roles in the care environment. approach.