PETRA, developed by a research team from the UC3M Department of Signal Theory and Communications, attempts to alleviate the communication difficulties experienced by some people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). These people have interactive skills that differ from those commonly used and manifest certain alterations in communication (verbal and non-verbal), as well as limitations in understanding the emotions and intentions of others.
To improve their relationships in their social environment, the PETRA project has developed a free mobile application, called cuidaTEA, capable of studying the behavior of these individuals, identifying personalized patterns and detecting changes that can help predict crisis episodes associated with anxiety, behavioral or sleep disorders, among others. For this purpose, the cuidaTEA mobile application uses various sources of information from the mobile device (steps, app usage or usage time), which are processed by artificial intelligence algorithms. "In this way, we try to alleviate the deficiencies in the communication skills of these patients through a system that generates, automatically and in real time, a direct alert to the cell phones of their caregivers, so that they know how they are doing," explains Pablo Martínez Olmos, professor in the Department of Signal Theory and Communications at the University and the project’s science leader.
The app is now available on both iOS and Android and is currently in the experimental phase within clinical studies, in collaboration with the Jiménez Díaz Foundation Health Research Institute.