Using Wearable Technology to Predict the Occurrence of Severe Behavior Problems among Neurodiverse Individuals: A Systematic Review.

Severe behavior problems (SBPs) exhibited by individuals with neurodevelopmental disabilities (NDD) can produce challenging and potentially dangerous situations. Although the field of behavior analysis has access to effective behavioral assessment and treatment methodologies, the risks associated with serving individuals with NDD engaging in SBPs remain high. Advances in wearable sensing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning offer potential support for behavior analysts working with individuals engaging in SBPs. Thus, researchers have begun studying physiological and behavioral signals (i.e., biometrics), such as heart rate or bodily motion, and their predictive relationship with SBPs. The current systematic literature review summarizes 13 peer-reviewed articles that studied predictive relations between biometrics and SBPs. We highlight commonalities, differences, and limitations among these studies. In particular, although some studies claim to predict the occurrence of SBPs over 30 s in advance of their occurrence, methodological concerns reduce the veracity of these claims. We propose short-term and long-term research questions to move this line of research forward.