2020 International Conference on Intelligent Engineering and Management (ICIEM)
Deep Analysis of Autism Spectrum Disorder
Detection Techniques.
Anshu Sharma
Research Scholar, Deparment of Computer Science
MRIIRS, Faridabad, Haryana
anshu.atri25@gmail.com
Abstract—Autism also called as Autism spectrum disorder
(ASD) is a complex, complicated and lifelong development
disability which includes problem that are characterized by
repetitive behavior, non-verbal communication, lack of
concentration. In recent years, ASD is increasing at a higher
momentum which needs early diagnosis. Detecting Autism
through various Screening tool are very time consuming and
costly. In last few year, various mathematical models also
called as predictive analytics are widely used for predictions.
For medical science, Machine learning and pattern recognition
are various multidisciplinary research areas which provide
effective techniques to diagnose ASD. The main aim of this
paper is to analyze various Machine learning algorithms, used
by various researcher like SVM (support Vector Machine),
Random forest Scan, decision trees, logistic regression and
compare the result based on their accuracy and efficiency.
Keywords— Machine Learning, SVM, Classifier, Genetic
I. INTRODUCTION
Autism is an integral neurodevelopment disorder
that affects the functioning of brain. It can occur at any age
but usually occur in childhood; mostly children at the age of
2 or 3 have more chances of having ASD[1]. It occurs due
to the combination of both genetic and environmental
factors.
Autism is not an illness or a disease rather it is a
neurological condition in which child is unable to
concentrate, think, learn, focus and solve the problems.
They find difficulty in explaining things through facial
expression or by making Gestures.
It is fastest growing development disability in all over the
world including India. According to Autism Centre for
Excellence(ACE) 1 in 68 children is suffering for ASD. So,
there is need to diagnose this disability at an early age[2].
According to Paul Fergus[3], Autism, a lifelong disability is
categorized in 3 ways, They are: Autistic ailment, Asperger
ailment and Pervasive development ailment (PDA) also
denoted as low, medium and high disorder.
The child suffering from ASD faces various challenges like
1. There are various symptoms of Autism Lack of
concentration
2. Repetition of same word again and again
3. Doesn’t interact with other people when they say
something
455
978-1-7281-4097-1/20/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE
Authorized licensed use limited to: University of New South Wales. Downloaded on August 08,2020 at 13:44:45 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
Dr. Poonam Tanwar
Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science
MRIIRS, Faridabad, Haryana
poonamtanwar.fet@mriu.edu.in
4. Lack of Understanding in Making Gestures, Facial
expression
5. Very sensitive in feel, touch, speech or smell.
6. Abnormal voice tone and body postures
There are various causes which lead to the occurrence of
ASD in child. Some of them are: Genetic- either of parents
is suffering from this disorder, some other member in the
family is autistic, and Complications during Pregnancy,
child has not received proper and timely vaccination and so
on.
The main objective of this paper is to deeply analysis
various machine learning techniques used to predict autism
traits, what are the various techniques adopted by the
different researchers to detect the child suffering from ASD,
comparing each techniques according to their efficiency and
accuracy.
The paper is divided into subsequent sessions: Section II
which provides a brief background of Machine learning
technologies. Section III -Literature Review, which provides
related work already done in this area followed by Section
IV which concludes the research limitations and how we can
extend this research in future.
II. MACHINE LEARNING IN DETECTING AUTISM
Over Past two decades, with the advancement of Artificial
Intelligence, there have been significant rise in the use of
machine learning techniques to identify the ASD disorder.
Machine learning is a procedure to train model using
algorithms and analyze observe Patterns [4].
The machine learning algorithms are broadly classified into
three categories: Supervised, Unsupervised and Semi-
Supervised [5].
1. Supervised learning: It is the learning which takes
labelled data sets, extracts information from it and
creates a new and labelled data set. Classification
and regression are the types of Supervised
Learning. It is also known as function
approximation induction. Supervised learning is
about induction, as opposed to deduction.
2. Unsupervised learning: Unsupervised learning is
about description. It is about taking a set of data
2020 International Conference on Intelligent Engineering and Management (ICIEM)
and figuring out how you divide it up in one way or
the other.
3. Semi supervised learning: Semi-supervised
learning comes between unsupervised-learning and
supervised learning. It also has combination of
labelled and unlabelled data.
For ASD, Machine learning is very helpful for unseen
data as it improve instrument performance and also
generalizes it. Unlike techniques which follows
traditional approaches like handwritten algorithms and
statistical analysis based on correlation, Various
Machine learning classifiers are used to optimize
objective functions which are also used to define
accuracy and Specificity.[6]
In this study, we critically evaluate different machine
learning classifiers used to diagnose ASD, to develop a
‡™ ƒ Š‹‡ Ž‡ƒ”‹‰ ‡–Š‘†• ˆ‘” 
Žƒ••‹ˆ‹ ƒ–‹‘ and also to minimize diagnostic time and
number of features. It is also used reducing time taken
for diagnosis and also to reduce no. of features ™Š‹ Š
‹’”‘˜‡•ƒ —”ƒ ›ƒ†’”‡ ‹•‹‘Ǥȏ͹Ȑ
III. LITERATURE REVIEW
This section briefly focuses on the research work already
done in this field. Although many different techniques have
been applied in diagnosing the traits of autism like
Multimedia technique, Fuzzy logic, image detection
techniques and so on. Out of all efficiency of Machine
learning techniques are more appreciable in predicting
syndrome based disease, such as Ml have been used to
diagnose various disease like lung cancer, diabetes etc.
Kazi et al [8] applied ML technique and build a
prediction model, for that author merged two of the random
forest algorithms i.e random forest classification and
regression tree and random forest Iterative Dichotomiser 3 to
obtain accuracy 92.26%, 93.78% and 97.10% in case of child
(age 4-11 yrs), adolescent (age 12-17 yrs) and adult persons
(age 18 and above) respectively. Their research included 250
real dataset of collected of different age group with and
without autism traits.
Fig 1: ASD Screening Application (User Interface)[8]
Satu et al [9] collected records of 642 children which are
of age group 16-30 months. Author processed data and
456
Authorized licensed use limited to: University of New South Wales. Downloaded on August 08,2020 at 13:44:45 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
creates categories of features that are based on individual
frequent region and analyzed result by applying different tree
based ML classifiers to choose best among them. The result
considered J48 as best classifier. From created J48 decision
tree ƒ—–Š‘” –‘‘ ‹‡ ”—Ž‡• ƒ† ‘ŽŽ‡ –‡† ”‡’‡ƒ–‡†
‹•–ƒ ‡• ‘ˆ ƒ••‘ ‹ƒ–‡† ˆ‡ƒ–—”‡•Ǥ – Žƒ•–ǡ ƒ‘‰ ʹ͵
†‹ˆˆ‡”‡– ˆ‡ƒ–—”‡• ‘Ž› ͺ ˆ‡ƒ–—”‡• ™‡”‡ —•‡† –‘ ‹†‡–‹ˆ›
‹†‹˜‹†—ƒŽ•™‹–Šƒ†™‹–Š‘—–—–‹•ǤŠ‹•‘†‡Ž•Š‘™‡†
ͻͺǤͶͶΨƒ —”ƒ ›ƒ†ͲǤͻͺͶ’”‡ ‹•‹‘Ǥ
Fig 2: Flowchart Depicting proposed ML classifiers[9]
Altay et al [10] developed a model by using different
methods of classification for the age group between 4 and 11
years. Two classification algorithms LDA called as linear
discriminant analysis and KNN also referred as K-nearest
neighbor were used. Author used 292 sample dataset out of
which 30 percent of dataset was used as test data to test the
algorithms and rest 70 percent was used as dataset for
training purpose. The result of the research gave 90.8%
accuracy using LDA algorithm and 88.5% accuracy using
KNN algorithm. Also, the sensitivity is calculated to be
0.9524 and specificity is calculated to be 0.08667, after
applying LDA algorithm.
Kosmicki et al [11] used ML approach to judge
instrument which is best and widely used for assessing ASD
in clinics. For, this Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule
(ADOS) method is used to check different behavior subsets
makes difference between children with or without autism.
In this paper, eight machine learning algorithms were taken
into account; author created two modules i.e. module 2 and
module 3 from 4540 individuals and used the feature
selection approach in backward direction step by step.
Author analyzed that out of 28 behaviour only 9 among
module 2 and 12 among module 3 were enough to detect risk
from ASD. Module 2 achieved 98.27% accuracy and module
3 achieved 97.66% accuracy.
Liu et al [4] used classification method of machine
learning technique to grasp face gestures of individuals to
identify autism syndrome in children. Author used machine
learning image classification method on different groups of
age 4-11 yrs autistic and typically developed (TD) based on
their intelligence and were asked to remember six faces
(three from their origin[i.e. Chinese] and three from different
2020 International Conference on Intelligent Engineering and Management (ICIEM)
origin). Then those groups were tested on identification of
chosen faces from 18 faces mixed with other origin/race of
images 500x700x72 (width pixels/height pixels/resolution
pixels) per inch. With the face gestures/postures of groups
ASD/TD author build a model which helps to identify autism
traits in children and able to achieve accuracy around
88.51% from this model.

Fig 4: Identification through Eye contact[12]


2. Vocal behaviour: The author analyzed the
spectrogram of 40 children out of which 20 are
Fig 3: Flowchart depicting framework of ASD autistic and 20 are normal children and identify that
classification[4] the frequency of autistic child is much lower than
normal child.
Bone et al [6] applied SVM classifier in order to enhance
the widely used diagnostic and screening tools for ASD.
Author used data of aged 10yrs of 1264 individuals having
autism traits and 462 individuals having no autism traits for
this paper and did clinical diagnosis between children with
autism traits and children without autism traits in multiple
stages (parameters) of cross-validation. Author provided a
algorithm (using 5 behavior features) for screening for
children below and above 10 years and found that for
children below 10 sensitivity and specificity of 89.2% and
86.7% respectively are achieved and for age above 10 the
values are 59.0% and 53.4% respectively
Tittagalla et al[12 ] used image processing approach in his
research to develop a mobile application to identify an
autistic child using different factors. Author used three major
tools in the research for a process called screening. They are
contact through eyes, voice patterns and a tool to response
quickly and positively.

1. Eye contact: With the help of this tool the author

identify the gaze pattern of the participant. As a
result, using this author checked whether child 
looks on screen or not. If a child looks at screen Fig 5: Graph Depicting the Frequencies of Autistic
then the application results in the area of the gaze Children[12]

Fergus et al [3] used mobile technology and interactive

learning features for the family of the child a suffering from
autism. In this study author postulate an affordable
application i.e a 3D animation for Smart phones that are used
as a learning paradigm for autistic children. The model
postulate in this paper produces an interactive and dynamic
feature based on 3D modeling and mobile technology which
produce a real and decisive animated application for children
having Autism Syndrome Disorder (ASD). The author used a
animated character called WoodyTM which was the character
used in film Toy StoryTM. This model was created in MaxTM
3D studio which fully controls the movement of the

457

Authorized licensed use limited to: University of New South Wales. Downloaded on August 08,2020 at 13:44:45 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
2020 International Conference on Intelligent Engineering and Management (ICIEM)
character and Facial animations. Each scene is associated
with text which prints scene in the form of question, such as
“Do you think Woody is sad or not sad?” Using such method
it can help an autistic child to understand scene very well if
he has any hearing difficulty.
Fig6: Picture depicting a sad scene from mobile
application[3]
As the below figure shows, application was installed on
android device.
Fig 7: Use of Mobile Application by child suffering from
Autism[3]
The result of the research is to analyze that using 3D
animation, children finds emotions in face expression of
different people or not .This question was using Paper -
based method and as a result strongly agreed percentage of
people was 14% , while disagreed people percentage was
57% and remaining 29% were neutral
Hauck et al [13] used machine learning technique support
vector machine (SVM) for developing a autism diagnostic
tool. Author trained a model and then tested it on a dataset of
about 2,500 records with autism diagnostic observation
schedule (ADOS) and autism diagnostic interview revised
(ADI-R) items. Feature selection was performed by using a
458
Authorized licensed use limited to: University of New South Wales. Downloaded on August 08,2020 at 13:44:45 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
greedy backward-elimination process and SVM was trained
using a linear kernel as well as a radial basis function (RBF)
kernel. Cross-validation (CV) was also applied to ensure a
high generalization performance. Result showed that a small
combination of selected ADOS and ADI-R items were
sufficient to achieve a good performance in diagnosing ASD.
Their model reached between 85.6% and94.3% sensitivity
and between 80.9% and 89.3% specificity with 10 features at
the most.
IV. RESULT &CONCLUSION
Autism is one of the vital issues which cannot be
prevented but can be treated and it’s a big challenge for any
family to have a child with autistic disorder. Therefore, it’s
importance to diagnose it, as early as possible. One of the
major issues in today’s research is to have improved
diagnostic tools to have faster, effective and accurate result.
Machine learning techniques have shown favorable results.
Machine learning with its leverage methods can be used to
diagnose ASD. Use of machine Learning are to create
algorithms that are vigorous and have contrive instruments.
By using different ML algorithms researchers were able to
build such model which shows improved results in terms of
accuracy and precisions.
In this analysis various classifiers have been used like SVM,
Random Forest, decision tree, LMT, KNN, Naïve Bayes’,
LDA and so on. Among all SVM have shown the best result
with an accuracy of 98.27%shown in fig. 8 and 9.
Fig 8: Accuracy achieved by using various ML Algorithms
2020 International Conference on Intelligent Engineering and Management (ICIEM)
Fig 9: Graph depicting accuracy of various ML approach
used
V. LIMITATION AND FUTURE SCOPE
The current study based on Machine learning has
lots of limitations: Firstly, Only structured dataset have been
considered for diagnosis. Secondly, several factors can be
considered while applying the model such as people with
different culture and age may scan face differently and other
characteristics such as severity of system can also affect
face patterns while scanning. Lastly, Intellectual and
physiologic measures such as activities of brain, skin
detection, gestures possessed by body, body movements,
speech and expressions of face can be merged with patterns
of eye movement, one of measure of face scan so as to
obtain more multimodal for detection of ASD.
[10] Osman Altay and Mustafa Ulas, “Prediction of the Autism Spectrum
DisorderDiagnosis with Linear Discriminant AnalysisClassifier and
K-Nearest Neighbor in Children”, “Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers”, 2018, 10.1109/ISDFS.2018.8355354
[11] JA Kosmicki, V Sochat, M Duda and DP Wall, “Searching for a
minimal set of behaviors for autism detectionthrough feature
selection-based machine learning”, www.nature.com/tp, vol 5, 2014,
doi:10.1038/tp.2015.7
[12] V. Y Tittagalla, R. R. P Wickramarachchi, G. W. C. N.
Chandrarathne, N. M. D. M. B. Nanayakkara, P. Samarasinghe, P.
Rathnayake and M.G.N.M. Pemadasa, “Use of machine learning to
improve autism screeningand diagnostic instruments: effectiveness,
efficiency,and multi-instrument fusion”, “Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers”, 2018
[13] F. Hauck and N.K liewer,” Machine Learning for Autism
Diagnostics: Applying Support Vector Classification”, “Int'l Conf.
Health Informatics and Medical Systems”, 2017

In future, a system can be developed for infants group which

are at great risk in future and also to decide whether the
patterns in the processing of face in infants can predicts how
severe the symptoms are when they are diagnosed after
several years.

REFERENCES

[1] U. Frith and F. Happé, “Autism spectrum disorder,” Current biology,

vol. 15, no. 19, pp. R786–R790, 2005
[2] Dr. Archana Nayar, “http://www.csrmandate.org/autism-centre-for-
excellence-unlocking-unlimited-potentials-for-autistic-children”,
2017.
[3] Paul Fergus, Basma Abdulaimma, Chris Carter, Sheena Round,
“Interactive Mobile Technology for Children withAutism Spectrum
Condition (ASC)”, “ IEEE 11th Consumer Communications and
Networking Conference (CCNC)”,10.1109/CCNC.2014.7111685,
2014.
[4] Wenbo Liu, Ming Li, and Li Yi, " Identifying Children with Autism
Spectrum Disorder Based on TheirFace Processing Abnormality: A
Machine Learning Framework”, International Society for Autism
Research, Wiley Periodicals,2016
[5] Kayleigh K. Hyde, Marlena N. Novack, Nicholas LaHaye, Chelsea
Parlett-Pelleriti ,Raymond Anden, Dennis R. Dixon. Erik Linstead.
“Applications of Supervised Machine Learning in Autism Spectrum
Disorder Research: a Review”, “Review Journal of Autism and
Developmental Disorders”,2019.,https://doi.org/10.1007/s40489-019-
00158-x
[6] Daniel Bone, Somer Bishop, Matthew P. Black, Matthew S.
Goodwin, Catherine Lord and Shrikanth S. Narayanan, “Use of
machine learning to improve autism screeningand diagnostic
instruments: effectiveness, efficiency,and multi-instrument fusion”,
“Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry”, 2016,
doi:10.1111/jcpp.12559
[7] Fadi Thabtah, “Machine learning in autistic spectrum
disorderbehavioral research: A review and ways forward”,
“informatics for Health and Social Care”,2018 ,
https://doi.org/10.1080/17538157.2017.1399132
[8] Kazi Shahrukh Omar, Prodipta Mondal, Nabila Shahnaz Khan, Md.
Rezaul Karim Rizvi, Md Nazrul Islam, “A Machine Learning
Approach to Predict AutismSpectrum Disorder”, “International
Conference on Electrical, Computer and Communication Engineering
(ECCE)”, 2019
[9] Md. Shahriare Satu , Farha Farida Sathi, Md. Sadrul Arifen, Md.
Hanif Ali and Mohammad Ali Moni, “Early Detection of Autism by
Extracting Features:A Case Study in Bangladesh”, “International
Conference on Robotics,Electrical and Signal Processing Techniques”
, 2019

459

Authorized licensed use limited to: University of New South Wales. Downloaded on August 08,2020 at 13:44:45 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.