Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are neurodevelopmental conditions which impact on a significant number of children and adults. Currently, the diagnosis of such disorders is done by experts who employ standard questionnaires and look for certain behavioural markers through manual observation. Such methods for their diagnosis are not only subjective, difficult to repeat, and costly but also extremely time consuming. In this work, we present a novel methodology to aid diagnostic predictions about the presence absence of ADHD and ASD by automatic visual analysis of a person's behaviour. To do so, we conduct the questionnaires in a computer-mediated way while recording participants with modern RGBD (Colour+Depth) sensors. In contrast to previous automatic approaches which have focussed only detecting certain behavioural markers, our approach provides a fully automatic end-to-end system for directly predicting ADHD and ASD in adults. Using state of the art facial expression analysis based on Dynamic Deep Learning and 3D analysis of behaviour, we attain classification rates of 96 for Controls vs Condition (ADHD ASD) group and 94 for Comorbid (ADHD+ASD) vs ASD only group. We show that our system is a potentially useful time saving contribution to the diagnostic field of ADHD and ASD.
Clinical studies confirm that mental illnesses such as autism, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), etc. show behavioral abnormalities even at very young ages; the early diagnosis of which can help steer effective treatments. Most often, the behavior of such at-risk children deviate in very subtle ways from that of a normal child; correct diagnosis of which requires prolonged and continuous monitoring of their activities by a clinician, which is a difficult and time intensive task. As a result, the development of automation tools for assisting in such monitoring activities will be an important step towards effective utilization of the diagnostic resources. In this paper, we approach the problem from a computer vision standpoint, and propose a novel system for the automatic monitoring of the behavior of children in their natural environment through the deployment of multiple non-invasive sensors (cameras and depth sensors). We provide details of our system, together with algorithms for the robust tracking of the activities of the children. Our experiments, conducted in the Shirley G. Moore Laboratory School, demonstrate the effectiveness of our methodology.