Vanderbilt researchers have been awarded a National Science Foundation grant to advance research that uses artificial intelligence to improve communication between neurodivergent and neurotypical youth and adults with the goal of placing more neurodivergent individuals with conditions like autism in the STEM workforce.
The three-year $900,000 award is through NSF’s Research on Innovative Technologies for Enhanced Learning (RITEL) program, which supports early-stage research in emerging technologies such as AI, robotics and immersive or augmenting technologies for teaching and learning that respond to pressing needs in real-world educational environments.
According to the National Library of Medicine, as much as 20% of the world population is neurodivergent, or individuals with conditions such as autism, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, or Tourette syndrome. Over 50 million Americans are neurodivergent.
However, these groups are vastly underrepresented and underutilized in the STEM workforce, even though research has shown advantages to hiring them. In the case of autistic individuals, which the grant will focus on, their strengths include attention to detail, strong work ethic, consistent performance on repetitive tasks, novel thinking, work engagement, perseverance, honesty, and dependability.
But such individuals, who may have different ways of perceiving, processing information, and expressing themselves, and neurotypical individuals, who follow conventional social norms and communication patterns, experience barriers in understanding each other’s perspectives – a so-called double empathy problem.
Nilanjan Sarkar, the Vice Dean of School of Engineering and a professor of mechanical engineering and computer engineering, and his team are working to address this problem through an innovative AI-based, multimodal, collaborative virtual environment (AiCoVE) that embeds the double empathy paradigm, a new teaching approach, and evaluates its deployment in technical colleges with autistic and non-autistic young adults.
AiCoVE aims to examine and foster cross-neurotype collaboration, problem-solving, and teamwork through collection of multimodal data such as speech, eye gaze, and physiology during collaborative tasks in a collaborative virtual environment; interpreting the data using affective computing; synthesizing feedback using the double empathy paradigm; and providing real-time feedback using an embedded intelligent agent.
“The proposed research has the potential to radically enhance communication and collaboration between neurodivergent and neurotypical individuals in teamwork, which are essential for inclusive skilled technical workforce (STW) development,” said Sarkar, who is also a professor of computer science and deputy director of technological innovations for the Frist Center for Autism and Innovation. “Since many neurodivergent individuals have unique strengths and capabilities, optimizing their independence and engagement in the workforce would transform what is currently an enormous societal opportunity cost, instead adding significant value to society as a whole.”
Other members of Sarkar’s team include Frist Center Director Keivan Stassun; Frist Center Associate Director David Caudel; Frist Center Deputy Director of Business Innovations Tim Vogus; and Frist Center Fellow Nigel Newbutt, School of Teaching and Learning, University of Florida.
Contact: Lucas Johnson, lucas.l.johnson@vanderbilt.edu