Development & validation of a scalable mobile platform for screening of developmental neuropsychiatric disorders in low-resource settings

Lead Research Organisation: University of Reading
Department Name: Sch of Psychology and Clinical Lang Sci

Abstract

Worldwide, 1 in 161 children are diagnosed or diagnosable with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). In India, our own study found a prevalence just over 1% in children aged 2 to 9 years. Although parents may notice ASD symptoms as early as 24 months, social and economic barriers to access to qualified health personnel mean that most of these children do not receive early diagnosis or intervention - or indeed any diagnosis or intervention at all. Moreover, many parents are unaware of age-appropriate developmental milestones and therefore clinical opinion is sought only when symptoms become obvious and impossible to ignore. This avoidable delay is an unfolding tragedy in light of evidence showing that front-line worker-delivered, parent-mediated interventions (e.g. PASS) lead to better behavioural and social outcomes. Scalable methods to flag up probable ASD would promote early referral to scarce specialist diagnostic facilities, connecting families with affordable, scalable, community-based interventions. We will realise this goal by developing a low-cost mobile screening platform ('Screening Tools for Autism Risk using Technology' (START)) usable in the home or in a routine health facility by the same non-specialist health workers who deliver PASS or other front-line interventions.

START will collect data from multiple sources. First, parents will be asked simple questions about their child's everyday behaviour, based on established questionnaires that have been validated in the Indian cultural context. To help parents identify and report subtle abnormalities, these questions will be supplemented by videos illustrating typical versus ASD behaviours. This video-enabled questionnaire will be delivered on a tablet PC. Second, low-cost eye-tracking technology on the same tablet PC will be used to monitor the child's eye movements in simple tasks, such as those assessing preference for social versus non-social images, and measuring how quickly attention shifts to new objects appearing on the screen. Finally, a segment of parent and child interaction will be recorded using the inbuilt camera, and used to code for signs of atypical behaviour. This combination of multiple measures will provide independent channels of data collected on a single platform, potentially improving on current screening methods that rely on one technique solely. Combining these techniques becomes especially important in a setting where challenges such as poor awareness about ASD may impact on parent reporting of abnormal behaviour (for example, parents may not have noticed that their child avoids direct gaze).

START's central innovation is its integration with existing front-line workers in LMICs, by adapting methods successfully employed in high income countries (HICs) to LMIC environments and resources. By virtue of its design to require minimal training, it will promote task-shifting - a concept the World Health Organization defines as "a process of delegation whereby tasks are moved, where appropriate, to less specialized health workers" and thus will reach wider populations. This task-shifting approach reduces the burden on the small number of highly-skilled mental-health professionals in LMICs, who then are free to focus on confirming diagnoses and prescribing appropriate interventions which, in turn, can also be delivered by non-specialist workers. The resulting enhancement to detection of ASD may also help develop community awareness and, in the longer term, address the barrier of low demand for services in these areas.

The development and application of the START platform involves collaborations across the breadth of basic and applied sciences - including public health research, technology, clinical psychology and neuroscience, and will be led by world-class institutions in the UK and India. Such global partnerships will build research capacity in India to bridge these wide detection gaps for neuropsychiatric disorders in low resource settings.

Technical Summary

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) emerge early and persist throughout life, contributing significantly to global years lived with disability. Typically, ASD diagnosis depends on clinical diagnostic assessments by highly trained professionals. This high resource demand poses a challenge in resource-limited areas where skilled personnel are scarce and public literacy and awareness of neurodevelopmental symptoms are low. The resulting delay or outright absence of diagnosis obstructs the community-based, parent-mediated interventions that promise to improve outcomes. Closing this detection gap will depend on task-shifting from scarce experts to more plentiful community health workers, via scalable screening tools usable in the community and with only minimal training. Specifically, this project aims to:
1. Develop a mobile platform incorporating parent report and child performance based assessment methods for detection of ASD, delivered by non-specialist health workers in community-based settings; and
2. Create a data transfer, storage, and analysis pipeline, which will enable subsequent combination of data streams from large-scale studies, to build and optimise probabilistic classifiers for estimating ASD risk and guiding referral to specialised diagnostic clinics and appropriate care pathways during translation to scale; and
3. Evaluate the usability, utility, and validity of the platform by pilot-testing in ~120 children and parents in and around Delhi (equal numbers of typically developing, DSM-5-diagnosed ASD, and non-ASD children with Intellectual disability (ID)).

These objectives will be achieved by an interdisciplinary team of public health researchers, clinicians, computer scientists, software designers and developers, and neuroscientists from UK and India. This robust international partnership will form the programmatic basis of a long-term research effort translating neuroscience into community health in low-resource settings.

Planned Impact

South Asia has the largest number of ASD children in the world, with India alone accounting for over 5 million children with ASD. In India, as in other LMICs, the treatment gap is close to 100% due to a) the paucity of mental health professionals, b) their concentration in urban private healthcare facilities, c) the use of expensive proprietary tools for diagnosis, and d) the lack of awareness of neuropsychiatric symptoms and consequent failures to seek treatment. This project will develop a mobile platform that can be administered by non-specialist health workers to identify probable cases of ASD. It will thus take a definite step to address the imbalance between where most autistic individuals live (LMICs) and where most of the autism research is conducted (HICs). This platform can potentially reduce this detection gap for ASD in India, and can be extended in future to other neuropsychiatric disorders.
The design phase of the project will incorporate iterative feedback from parents of children with ASD. This process will help maximise the impact on the target population once the full-scale study is launched.
Early intervention improves behavioural outcomes in ASD. A recent trial by project investigators demonstrated that a non-specialist-delivered ASD intervention (PASS) in community settings in India and Pakistan is acceptable, feasible and effective. The availability of a scalable tool that detects probable ASD cases, and transfers them to a referral pathway for clinical diagnosis and interventions such as PASS, would give more families access to these evidence-based interventions.

Three groups of stakeholders will benefit directly from this research: academics, healthcare systems as well as families of children with ASD. The impact for academics will be the availability of data from a scalable tool for ASD detection implemented in an LMIC. Project data and code will be shared freely through open access mechanisms, thus reducing dependence on proprietary tools. The combination of measures recorded by the platform may help develop future diagnostic tools for ASD. Since the platform will be designed to be extensible to other disorders, a prototype will be available for academics interested to develop similar projects in other other low-resource settings. The facilitators and barriers to achieving our targets will be widely shared with all stakeholders, thus ensuring the implementation of increasingly feasible and efficient approaches in future projects. Beyond the development of the platform, one of the deliverables of this project will be the cementing of an interdisciplinary autism research partnership across UK and India. Such a partnership will serve as the foundation for future academic collaborations.

A well-defined referral pathway that will be set up as a next-step of developing the detection tool will have a twofold benefit for healthcare systems : a) reducing the burden on the limited number of specialist clinicians by suggesting probable conditions, enabling them to focus on formal diagnosis; and b) reducing health-care related costs by promoting earlier diagnosis and onset of interventions. Capacity in the form of local expertise will be built within cadres of community health workers. Families of children with ASD will benefit by becoming more aware of the signs of probable ASD, and developmental disorders in general. Increased awareness about these disorders is expected not only to improve early treatment seeking behaviour, but also to reduce anxiety over the outcome of an affected child by connecting them to a defined referral pathway. A widely applied screening mechanism for childhood developmental disorders would also help increase general awareness on this topic, which over time, would lead to reduced stigma associated with these disorders. Perhaps most significantly for the long term, these changes will be codified into public policy via links with governmental organisations and advisory bodies.

Publications

10 25 50
 
Description The project developed an app that can be used to assess autism-related behaviour using a tablet PC in young children at home settings. Notably, this app can be administered by non-specialist community health workers with minimal training. All data collected through the app is uploaded to a central server. Researchers are able to access and analyse anonymised data. This project collected data from 120 children with Autism Spectrum Disorders, Intellectual Disability, as well as Typically Developing children from in and around Delhi, India. The results of the app show that it is able to discriminate well between children with and without a neurodevelopmental disorder. The app has also been tested in 300+ typically developing children in the UK. The app and the training material for community health workers has been translated to eleven languages, focussing particularly on languages used in low-resource settings. The development of such an app potentially makes identification of neurodevelopmental disorders more scalable, since it does not require a specialist resource (e.g. a clinical psychologist) at the point-of-contact.
Exploitation Route The app and training materials are available upon request.
Sectors Healthcare

Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology

URL http://www.startproject.bhismalab.org
 
Description 1) New collaborations being formed with computer scientists in India, who plan to build web versions of this app. 2) Transfer of expertise to non-specialist health workers in India, as well as lateral transfer of knowledge across all members of the project team - who come from different disciplines (computer science, psychology, neuroscience, public health).
First Year Of Impact 2023
Sector Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Healthcare
Impact Types Societal

 
Description India Autism Center
Geographic Reach Asia 
Policy Influence Type Participation in a guidance/advisory committee
URL http://www.indiaautismcenter.org
 
Guideline Title Consensus Statement of the Indian Academy of Pediatrics on Evaluation and Management of Autism Spectrum Disorder
Description Research cited in Indian clinical guidelines for autism diagnosis
Geographic Reach Asia 
Policy Influence Type Citation in clinical guidelines
 
Description Scientific Advisor for Autism Research Trust (UK charity)
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Participation in a guidance/advisory committee
 
Description PhD Studentship (international)
Amount £90,000 (GBP)
Funding ID E2860300 (UoR) 
Organisation Felix Foundation 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 08/2017 
End 09/2020
 
Description SPARC Project
Amount ₹7,408,000 (INR)
Organisation Government of India 
Sector Public
Country India
Start 03/2019 
End 07/2021
 
Description Scalable TRansdiagnostic Early Assessment of Mental Health (STREAM)
Amount £3,943,718 (GBP)
Funding ID MR/S036423/1 
Organisation Medical Research Council (MRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 07/2019 
End 07/2024
 
Description UKRI GIAA Global Impact Accelerator Award
Amount £32,000 (GBP)
Organisation Research Councils UK (RCUK) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2018 
End 03/2019
 
Title START app 
Description As part of this project, we now have a prototype for the START app, which consists of multiple assessments of autism-related behaviour/cognition on a tablet platform. The broader aim is for this platform to be administered to toddlers by non-specialist community health workers across low-resource settings. The START app has been translated to 11 different languages, and is available for free. 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2019 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact This software is available to others on request. 
URL https://startproject.bhismalab.org
 
Title Research database for adults and children with autism 
Description A database of adults and children with autism who are willing to take part in research at the University of Reading is being maintained as part of this project. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2012 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact Our grant funded research on individuals with autism would not have been possible without the existence of such a database. 
 
Description MRC COMPASS award 
Organisation University of Manchester
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution The MRC funded COMPASS project (Communication-centered Parent-mediated treatment for Autism Spectrum Disorder in South Asia) is the largest clinical trials of a parent mediated autism intervention in India. Our app (START) is now very close to being considered as a key outcome measure in this trial, which is about to commence later in 2019. We will provide the app and relevant training to the COMPASS team, as well as help in analysing the data that would be collected from this project. This project will be of direct benefit to India, as it takes place in and around Delhi - involving training of a significant number of community health workers and early career researchers.
Collaborator Contribution The COMPASS team, led by Prof Jonathan Green (University of Manchester) has developed the parent mediated intervention, which is being tested through the RCT.
Impact no output yet.
Start Year 2018
 
Description Web app development 
Organisation Ashoka University
Country India 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Researchers in the Computer Science department of Ashoka University, India have recently started a collaboration to explore the development of a web version of the START app and its components. Making a web app version of START is likely to make it more digitally sustainable, as Android OS and device hardwares have a much shorter lifetime compared to web browswers. We have contributed the source code of the START app and all media assets used in the original app
Collaborator Contribution The CS team at Ashoka University is writing the code for transforming components of the START app to a browser based app.
Impact No output yet. The collaboration is multi-disciplinary, involving both neuroscientists and psychologists (from our end), and computer scientists (from Ashoka University).
Start Year 2023
 
Title START app 
Description The START app (Screening Tools for Autism Risk using Technology) is a battery of tasks that can be administered by a nonspecialist with minimal training in household settings. The current version of the app is being tested in India, and will be made open source on completion of data analysis. 
Type Of Technology Webtool/Application 
Year Produced 2022 
Open Source License? Yes  
Impact 131 children (roughly equal numbers of children with ASD, intellectual disability, and neurotypical controls) have been tested in household settings in low-resource settings in India by nonspecialist health workers using this app. Training on using this app has been provided to 10+ community health workers in Delhi, India. Machine learning analysis on the data revealed that the data from the app is able to discriminate between ASD, Intellectual Disability, and Typically Developing children with 78% accuracy. This app is now being used in two other projects to track intervention outcome for autism in low-resource settings in India and Italy. Demonstrations of how the app works have been provided to multiple stakeholders (clinical practitioners, community health workers, researchers) drawn from all across India. 
URL http://www.startproject.bhismalab.org
 
Description 5 invited lectures at UK and European Universities (Keele, Essex, UCL, Milan, Sapienza) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact I delivered five invited talks to different universities in UK and Italy (named in the title). The work described was funded by the previous and the current MRC grants.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description Conference co-chair for the largest annual autism research meeting in the UK (Autistica Discover meeting 2019) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Patients, carers and/or patient groups
Results and Impact 400+ adults ( a mix of individuals with and without a clinical diagnosis of autism and their families) attended a day long conference at the University of Reading, which I was invited to co-chair. This is the largest annual autism research meeting in the UK, organised by Autistica UK.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL https://www.autistica.org.uk/get-involved/research-conference/discover-conference-livestream
 
Description Interview by BBC Berkshire 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact I was interviewed about our work in developing apps for assessing autism in low-resource settings. This interview raised the profile of our work regionally, and increased visibility. We have had more requests from local individuals to take part in our research.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description Interview by Forbes Health 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact BC was interviewed by Forbes Health about empathy, and conditions in which different fractions of empathy might be affected. This article was published in Forbes Health in August 2023.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://www.forbes.com/health/mind/empathy/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CLearning%20plays%20a%20major%20role,pra...
 
Description Invited Plenary Lecture at the International Conference on Autism: Challenges and Solutions, Moscow, Russia 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact I was a plenary speaker at an international conference on autism which was attended by nearly 500 people over three days. This conference is the primary autism conference in Russia, and my lecture led to significant discussions for translating the knowledge to locally appropriate settings. I also provided feedback on research proposals written by early career researchers at the meeting.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Invited editorial for the Indian Journal of Medical Research 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact I wrote an invited editorial for the Indian Journal of Medical Research (the oldest medical journal of India) - on the need for a national programme for autism. This journal is read widely within the Indian medical establishment.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://journals.lww.com/ijmr/fulltext/2023/04000/autism_in_india__time_for_a_national_programme.1.a...
 
Description Invited editorial in The Hindu (the second largest circulated English newspaper in India) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact BC wrote an invited editorial for The Hindu on Autism on the occasion of World Autism Awareness Day in April 2023.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/india-needs-a-national-programme-on-autism/article66692307.ece
 
Description Invited lecture at Department of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Nearly fifty people attended the virtual seminar, and there was considerable discussion after the lecture on the implications of the research and potential future directions.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.ucl.ac.uk/pals/events/2021/nov/language-cognition-seminar-prof-bhismadev-chakrabarti
 
Description Invited lecture at Bar-Ilan University, Israel [BC] 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Around 30 people attended an advanced seminar on autism and social cognition. This event led to many questions and an interesting discussion afterward.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
 
Description Invited lecture at Mansfield Hall, USA 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Over 50 people attended a seminar I gave to all staff working at Mansfield Hall, an organisation devoted to catalyse transitions of autistic young adults to mainstream universities in the USA. The lecture led to detailed follow-up discussions as well as laid the foundation for an institutional partnership between Mansfield Hall and University of Reading. This partnership, once it has been legally approved, will allow autistic students from Mansfield Hall to come and spend a term abroad at the University of Reading.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://mansfieldhall.org
 
Description Invited lecture at University of Cambridge (Zangwill Club, Department of Experimental Psychology) [BC] 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Around 50 people attended an online seminar on autism and empathy. The seminar was part of the flagship series of departmental seminars held at the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge (Zangwill Club).
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL http://talks.cam.ac.uk/talk/index/156637
 
Description Invited lecture at University of Florida, USA [BC] 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Abuot 20 researchers attended an advanced online seminar on Autism and social cognition. The seminar was followed by interesting questions and discussion.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
 
Description Invited lecture on autism and empathy (Nottingham University) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact This was an invited lecture on autism and empathy, organised by the Department of Psychology at the University of Nottingham.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description Invited lecture on globalisation of autism 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact This was a Wellcome Trust sponsored event exploring the Globalisation of Autism, from a historical and social perspective. My talk focussed on our work in India, and showcased the current project.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL https://projects.history.qmul.ac.uk/emotions/events/the-globalisation-of-autism-historical-sociologi...
 
Description Invited lectures at University of Milan and University of Aarhus 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Each of these lectures were attended by around 100 individuals (drawn from the university and surrounding areas) interested in Autism research. These talks were followed with extensive discussions.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL http://interactingminds.au.dk/events/single-events/artikel/reward-empathy-and-autism/
 
Description Keynote address at an IBRO conference on Neurodevelopmental Disorders at Jindal University, India 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact I delivered a keynote address describing our work on this and other projects, which gave rise to many follow-up questions and requests for collaboration/partnership.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Keynote lecture at the Dutch national autism congress 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact I gave a keynote lecture, showcasing our research on this and other projects at the Dutch Autism National Congress. This is the largest autism related event held annually in the Netherlands, attended by multiple stakeholders. The lecture gave rise to substantial discussion afterward.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Keynote lecture at the annual meeting of the Indian Psychiatric Society 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This is the main annual conference for all psychiatrists in India, attended by a large number of practitioners. I presented the data from the STREAM and START projects. At the end of the lecture, I received many questions, and requests for collaboration - as well as invitations for future lectures.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Lecture by Bhismadev Chakrabarti at the Berkshire Health Foundation Trust 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Over 100 individuals, representing a diverse set of stakeholder categories, attended this event organised by the Berkshire Health Foundation Trust in partnership with the University of Reading. This event led to extensive follow up discussions on the potential to implement the app in low-resource settings in the UK.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Lecture by Indu Dubey at the annual meeting of BASIS network (British Autism Study of Infant Siblings) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact The annual BASIS meetings are a highlight of autism research in the UK: bringing together autism researchers from the UK and beyond. The invited lecture at BASIS helped showcase START to this important network.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Panel chair at BPS Cognitive Developmental Section Conference at Stoke-on-Trent 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact I chaired a symposium on "Mobile health (mHealth) technologies to address assessment and intervention gaps in autism in low-resource settings" at the British Psychological Society Annual Meeting of the Cognitive and Developmental Sections at Stoke-on-Trent
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Plenary lecture at a workshop on "Autism in BAME communities" held at London South Bank University 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Third sector organisations
Results and Impact This day long workshop/conference on Autism in BAME communities has been running for two years, catering largely to people from these communities in and around London who are affected by ASD. This meeting had around 50 attendees who engaged in a lot of discussion with the speakers.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Plenary lecture at a workshop on Neurodiversity at the University of Cambridge 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Around 60 people attended this annual meeting on Multilingualism and Neurodiversity, organised by and at University of Cambridge.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/multilingualism-and-neurodiversity-workshop-tickets-59884043787#
 
Description Plenary lecture at an international conference on 'Redefining well-being in the wake of the pandemic' at University of Calcutta, India 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact This three day international webinar attracted a large audience from all over India. My lecture led to a published book of conference proceedings and several follow-up conversations and connections.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description Plenary talk on annual meeting of Bangladesh International Medical Students Scientific Congress (largest medical conference in Bangladesh) [BC] 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Over 2000 people attended the online webinar on "Moving the lab to the field: Perspectives from Autism research".
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
 
Description Presentation and posters at the annual meeting of International Society for Autism Research 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The annual meeting of the International Society for Autism Research is the largest annual gathering of autism researchers and clinicians worldwide. Outputs from the START project were presented at this meeting held in Montreal in May 2019. The START project results were showcased in three posters (led by Dr.s Jayashree Dasgupta, Indu Dubey, and Rahul Bishain), and in a symposium on mobile health technologies (led by Prof Bhismadev Chakrabarti). Notably, early career researchers from India led the majority of these presentation/posters.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Public lecture at the Sapienza University of Rome 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact I delivered an invited public talk on 'Barriers in autism' at the School of Advanced Studies at the Sapienza University of Rome. This talk was part of a high profile series, with a former prime minister of Italy, and a Nobel laureate as two of the other speakers of this series this year.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description Public science outlet feature (Spectrum) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Patients, carers and/or patient groups
Results and Impact Our study on autism prevalence in India got featured by Spectrum (the top news portal for autism-related news, worldwide, run by the Simons Foundation in USA) . https://spectrumnews.org/news/school-survey-india-reveals-low-autism-prevalence/ This article sets the stage for and makes an explicit reference to the current study (funded by this grant).
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL https://spectrumnews.org/news/school-survey-india-reveals-low-autism-prevalence/
 
Description Public talk at Central European University, Budapest 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact This was an invited lecture on our research, followed by discussions with leaders of the field of social cognition (in which CEU is an international centre of excellence).
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description Talk by Gauri Divan at the Harvard Medical School Seminar Series; on "Children First: Sangath's work and vision for young children" 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact A seminar given by a research team member in a prestigious series attended by researchers and other stakeholders.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description UN roundtable meeting on autism on the occassion of World autism awareness month 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact I was an invited expert panelist on the UN roundtable meeting on autism, held to celebrate the world autism awareness month. The meeting was held virtually, and live telecast by the UN Television. It gave rise to questions and discussions later.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description UNICEF roundtable on AI/ML applications for early identification of neurodevelopmental disorders 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This virtual roundtable meeting was organised by UNICEF and chaired by the Chief Science Officer of Autism speaks, the largest autism charity worldwide. I was invited as an expert to speak about our work in using these techniques in the scalable apps that we have been working on. The roundtable generated wider awareness of our work and the challenges - and highlighted the future potential for this work to be integrated into worldwide healthcare pathways.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description Vikram Patel: Annual Congress of the Indian Academy of Pediatrics, North Zone; SC Khandpur Oration, "Addressing the developmental needs of India's Children" 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Around 500 specialist practitioners drawn from across the country attended this lecture where this project was featured.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description Workshop and dissemination of results from the project to stakeholders from around India 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Nearly 60 invitees from different stakeholder groups drawn from all across India (policy, professional practice, research, families) took part in a day long meeting in New Delhi where the results of the START project were formally presented. Opportunities for future collaborations were discussed with multiple attendees.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Young Academy of Europe 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact About 40 people attended an online seminar on our research that I delivered as part of the tenth anniversary lecture series organised by the Young Academy of Europe. The lecture prompted follow up questions and discussions.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYWWHFwB9kQ