Helping people on the autism spectrum and their families stay connected with essential services via the delivery of telehealth is the aim of an Advance Queensland Fellowship awarded to Associate Professor from Menzies Health Institute Queensland.
A speech pathologist, the Associate Professor and team will work with partner Autism Queensland to guide its rapid transition to organisation-wide telehealth delivery for clients and their families across Queensland.
“COVID-19 has led to unprecedented disruption to therapy and support services for these people,’’ he said.
Physical distancing restrictions have meant that many services cannot operate in person. These services are essential in helping children to learn, adolescents to navigate the teenage years and adults to be independent and included in society.
Despite the restrictions, he said therapists, teachers, people on the autism spectrum and their families quickly switched to telehealth.
These are some of the most creative and committed people you will ever meet and they have risen to the challenge. It seems in some cases, telehealth works just as well, and possibly better, than face-to-face delivery.
The project will address the current disruption to services and any long-term changes, while also future-proofing service delivery against future pandemics or natural disasters.
The aim is to take the most successful short-term fixes and turn them into sustainable long-term gains. The project is one of five Advance Queensland Fellowships awarded to Griffith University researchers.
Telehealth – a growing APAC market sector
The global affective computing market is projected to grow from US$28,560 million in 2020 to US$139,992 million by 2025, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 37.4% during the forecast period considering the post-COVID-19 scenario.
The deployment of emotion AI-related technologies in customer interaction solutions across retail and healthcare verticals and growing adoption of virtual assistants for healthcare and entertainment purposes is pushing the overall growth of the affective computing market.
Technological advancements, along with the rising adoption of advanced electronic devices, are projected to stimulate the growth of the market during the forecast period. Voice-activated biometrics used for security purposes help in providing access to authenticated users for performing a transaction, therefore, surging the use of affective computing solutions across the globe.
By component, the software segment is estimated to hold a larger market size than the hardware segment in 2025.
The increasing need to capture customer behaviour and personality, the demand for software platforms for the provision of efficient learning tools in educational institutes, and the rapidly growing use of supportive tools for medical emergencies are the major drivers that have bolstered the software providers to offer effective computing software platforms.
Growing virtualization across industries and the adoption of cloud computing is promoting the demand for software-based affective computing solutions in various countries. Moreover, software installations are suitable for business entities that are dynamic in nature and usually have a limited budget allocated for deploying new infrastructure.
The Asia Pacific affective computing market is expected to register the highest growth rate during the forecast period.
APAC has witnessed advanced and dynamic adoption of new technologies and expected to record the highest CAGR in the global affective computing market during the forecast period. APAC constitutes major economies, including Australia, which are expected to register high growth in the affective computing industry.
Verticals, such as healthcare and life sciences, government, and IT and telecom, are expected to adopt affective computing solutions at the highest rate in the region. Companies operating in APAC would benefit from the flexible economic conditions, industrialization-motivated policies of the governments, as well as from the growing digitalization, which is expected to have a significant impact on the business community.