A couple of years ago, Adam Gold, CHOC’s chief technology officer, started thinking about what kind of app could help parents of kids with autism – or kids with other cognitive challenges, for that matter.
Gold has a nephew who has autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and his wife, Lisa, is a special education teacher.
Now, Gold’s creation, an app he calls uTine (a play off the word “routine”), is on the verge of being tested on patients at the Thompson Autism and Neurodevelopmental Center (TAC), with a pilot version set to be ready by July 2021.
“The idea was to develop an app for children with autism and other cognitive challenges that they could use to help them get into routines or complete daily tasks,” says Gold, who will detail the app at CHOC Innovation Day on June 25.
Casey Clay, PhD, director of the Behavior Program at the TAC, will pilot the app with patients and their parents.
“Kids on the autism disorder spectrum like predictability of events, and this app will provide them with visual reminders of their next activity or task,” Clay says.
“What’s interesting about this app,” he adds, “is there’s a rich literature base in the field of behavior analysis and a lot of research on the effects of picture activity schedules, or visual activity schedules to help kids follow a schedule or get through an activity.”
CHOC Innovation Day — “A celebration of innovation at CHOC — will be held Friday, June 25, from 1-3 p.m. The online session, held in honor of the late Dr. Nick Anas for his contributions to innovation and medical intelligence, is open to all CHOC physicians and associates.
The virtual event will feature remarks by CHOC CEO Kim Cripe and Dr. Anthony Chang and also will showcase groundbreaking artificial intelligence and virtual reality projects, innovation by nurses, and much more.
On May 20, Gold previewed the uTine app during Pediatric Innovation Start-up Demo Day, an online forum hosted by The Innovation Lab in Newport Beach.
Gold worked with the Innovation Lab, a for-profit organization owned by non-profit healthcare systems, in developing uTine.
“I’m excited about it for a couple of reasons,” says Suzy Engwall, national director at The Innovation Lab. “First, the incidence of autism continues to grow. Kids with autism grow up to be adults with autism, and many who are on the spectrum never learn some of the basic life skills they need to have in order to take care of themselves every day.
“Second, as those with ASD get older, they ‘age out’ of many services, and if they don’t have family members who can take care of them, they will often end up in institutions or other places that they really shouldn’t be in, instead of living on their own because they haven’t learned all of the necessary life skills to do so.
“It’s really important to start as young as we can to teach these life skills in a fun and memorable way. We’ve really got to help those of the autism spectrum become as self-sufficient as possible.”
Suzy is working on the uTine app along with Innovation Lab colleagues Matt Keller, client engagement executive; Ganesh Laxminarayan, executive director, Health IT; Hesham (Sam) Mahdawi, technical project manager; and Durai Ashok, senior solutions architect.
How the app works
The app, which helps kids complete routine tasks such as brushing their teeth, putting on their shoes, and eating lunch, is easy to use with a simple design starring several cartoon animals, including a dog, a cat and a porcupine.
A parent signs up and creates a profile for his or her child, including name, age and personal preferences.
The parent can then start creating “uTines” with step-by-step instructions on how to complete a task.
Using their own phone or their parent’s phone, the child captures each attempted or completed task by snapping a picture. The parent receives a notification and reviews the picture. The parent then can reward the child for completing a task – such as 15 minutes of TV time, 10 minutes on YouTube, one hour of playing with the dog – whatever the child likes to do.
When they reward their child, a parent can click on a pre-written message to send, such as, “You’re on fire today!”
Gold says he’s working on creating a public library parents can use for very simple uTines so they don’t have to create them themselves.
A key feature of the app is that parents can invite members of the child’s care team into the experience – a doctor, a nurse, a teacher, a psychologist. They, in turn, can gain insights into how the child is doing and chat back on forth securely with the parent.
Gold says he hopes the app gains traction for children with any condition or kids in general who have a hard time establishing routines.
“This app builds on a rich body of evidence-based research, so it’s very likely to succeed,” adds Clay. “This is all about pushing evidence-based research further so we at CHOC can help parents who have kids with autism and other conditions.”
Register here for CHOC Innovation Day.
Learn more about the Thompson Autism and Neurodevelopmental Center at CHOC.
