“Once ridiculed as a failed innovation, Glass is emerging as an important tool to help with educational and behavioral needs of children with autism. Glass Enterprise Edition (Glass), the successor to Google Glass smartglasses, were explored in children with autism and their caregivers to evaluate its role in this complex condition effecting an estimated 3.5 million persons in the United States alone.

Today’s publication examined a small group of children from two key perspectives—clinical utility of Glass as well as its usability and acceptability in this population. Eight children with ASD and their caregivers were enrolled in the trial. The children had a wide range of ability, including limited speech to speaking, and represented a full range of school ages (6 to 17 years). The smartglasses were loaded with a suite of assisted-reality apps for social-emotional learning and self-coaching related to brain-based challenges and needs. Participants explored the devices at their leisure, putting them on and taking them off and exploring the style, size, weight, shape, and features such as foldability, and spoke out loud in some cases (children with greater speaking ability) about their observations and questions. All children successfully transitioned to the interview room, where they responded to questions by the experimenter, accompanied and assisted by their caregivers as needed. Caregivers were interviewed about their experience of using the smartglasses and whether they would use them at school and home.

The results are compelling” – read the full article in Forbes here.