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FOR PEOPLE WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISABILITIES

Traditional Chinese Martial Arts with 21st Century Technology

The course of study centers on Chen Family style Tai Chi Chuan as
taught by Grandmaster Chen Zhenglei. He is a member of the 19
th
(nineteenth) generation to teach this style.

We film and grade ALL classes so that doctors, parents and other professionals can quantitatively assess the impact of changes in diet, sleep, transport and medications.

But the daily grades are not the only stream of telemetry we support.

Based on work done at the University of California at San Diego, we are experimenting with analyzing facial expressions to determine emotions: does doing the Single Whip movement make a particular student smile?

Mirrors in a classroom have many advantages BUT they are comparatively expensive, easily broken, and troublesome for photographers. We are also going to experiment with smart glasses: streaming video of the Grandmaster performing to one lens while streaming the image of the student to the other lens. We would also like to see aides equipped with something like smart glasses so notes can be taken hands-free (using speech to text) and so the aide need not look away from students (for example, down at a tablet) while entering information, yet still be able to obtain useful information about the students.

Our SAITO application software allows parents (and anyone else) to record meals, beverages, sleep, behaviors and medications.

However, n the finest traditions of Tai Chi Chuan – deep knowledge is found within.

We have not discovered a completely acceptable smart device yet, but we'd like to have each student wear something like a FitBit to monitor heart beat, blood pressure and blood glucose. We are attempting to preempt events like seizures, paroxysmal tachycardia and sensory overload.We are currently not satisfied with the accuracy of smart devices when measuring temperature, step count or sleep quality. How useful these will be is unclear. Likewise, no one currently has a product that monitors electrical activity in the brain in a non-invasive manner.

While strictly voluntary, we would urge all students to get a DNA analysis. There are already over 100 genes on all 23 chromosomes implicated in various types of autism. We would like to establish reasonable velocities of learning given a student's genetic configuration and general health. Accordingly, we also strongly recommend annual blood chemistry analysis, notably for glucose and lipids. The intent is to forestall heart disease and diabetes which are unfortunately encountered with frequency.

As part of a general inquiry regarding the effectiveness of music as a reinforcement, we are going to determine whether the traditional drum, gong and cymbals used in lion and dragon dancing are the most suitable instruments.
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