Communications of the ACM
App Paired With Sensor Measures Stress and Delivers Advice to Cope in Real Time
When a new smartphone-based system detects stress in parents during emotionally charged interactions with their children, it provides the parents with research-based strategies to reduce that stress.
Credit: ukmalayalee.com
University of California, San Diego (UCSD) researchers have developed ParentGuardian, a smartphone-based system that combines a mobile application and sensor to detect stress in parents and provides research-based strategies to help decrease that stress during emotionally charged interactions with their children.
The interventions are based on Parenting Behavioral Therapy, which has been shown to help in addressing the needs of children with ADHD and their parents.
"Instead of focusing on an individual in need we are looking at how to build and design technology for the family as a whole and what’s beneficial for them," says UCSD Ph.D. computer science student Laura Pina.
ParentGuardian combines a stress sensor, a phone, a backend server, and tablet to remind parents of effective interventions. The wrist sensor measures electrical activity on the user's skin, which changes during high-stress situations. The researchers then compare the data from the sensors with the user's self-reported instances of stress to train a machine-learning algorithm to detect stress events in real time.
During testing, the researchers say, parents of children with ADHD found the system's suggestions to be useful. Based on the insights gained from this work, the researchers have applied for a grant to conduct a study on a larger number of parents.
From UCSD News (CA)
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Abstracts Copyright © 2014 Information Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA
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