“Empowered Brain” is an electronic life coach that children (and adults) with autism love! Developed by neuroscientists and doctors from MIT & Harvard, it has been clinically tested successfully and is now available here.
CLICK THE VIDEO at the top of this page to see parents, autistic people, & therapists explain its benefits; and that is easy to learn, safe, usable by people on the spectrum, not fragile
Questions? empower@Brain-Power.com
ON PHONES, click "READ THE STORY" below for details
Quick Update: We have shipped all the original orders!!
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Introducing the "Empowered Brain" System for Autism
The World’s First Wearable Social-Emotional Skills Coach for People with Autism
The Empowered Brain™ system by Brain Power aims to empower children and adults all along the autism spectrum to teach themselves practical life skills, and assess their progress numerically.
Based on brain science from MIT and Harvard, these apps facilitate life skills such as language, emotional understanding, eye contact, control of behaviors, conversation skills, meltdown prevention, social connection, self-confidence, perspective-taking, and more. The system can help people with autism to better understand, interact with, and enjoy the world around them. These are the skills for self-sufficiency, and we believe that The Soft Skills are the Hard Skills™!
Empowered Brain apps run on Google Glass, which is a very impressive wearable computer. When you wear Glass, you can still see the world around you. Yet you also see (and hear) our social apps at the same time: through the see-through computer screen, and "bone-conduction" speaker. This is fundamentally better thanan iPad or phone, because with those, your child is looking down and locked in another world. Empowered Brain keeps the wearer (such as your child) heads-up, hands-free, and engaged with the social world!
To give a brief example of one of our apps ("Emotion Charades"), the autistic adult or child sees an emoji floating on either side of the partner's face, and tilts her/his head to chose the one that matches the facial expression, for a reward. Meanwhile, the software automatically monitors her/his performance as well as anxiety or stress level. (Learn more about this app, and our others, down below.)
Afterward, every response, all timings, and even measures of stress and anxiety can be accessed in your web account. It is like automatic session notes for the therapist or teacher, and it includes more data than any person could record during a session. For a parent, you can view past progress and predict the future.
The user is not expected to wear the system all day. It is like piano lessons (but more fun), or sports practice (but can be done at home): to be practiced about 30 minutes per day.
It feels like a video game but is clinically proven to address daily challenges of autism.
We aim to help people with autism be understood, not cured; accepted, not isolated; empowered, not forced. As we say it, we aim to "empower every brain"!
A note on language: people prefer different words (e.g. "autistic" vs "with autism"; or how to describe "functioning" levels). At Brain Power, we try to switch among them. We don't want to offend anyone. We just want to do good science and help deserving people improve their lives!
Empowered Brain provides value for parents, therapists, teachers, schools, practitioners, and of course people on the spectrum. Read more to learn how it can apply to you.
Patents pending worldwide.
We are ready to empower you!
You may have heard rumors about Glass or wondered about the future of the device. The good news is that Google released a new version of Glass a few months ago. We even published the first scientific research paper that shows the new Glass. Further details are down below. Also, our software can run on the dozens of other smartglasses that have recently emerged. Thus, one way or another Empowered Brain is here to stay!
In case you wondered! (Brief answers to questions we often hear are in the graphic below.)
More information is in the FAQ at the bottom of the page.
Brain Power has been in over 250 articles and TV appearances around the world,
We have partners for success! We are amazingly fortunate for their support. (Additional partners listed down below.)
A small sampling of impressions from parents, teachers, and autistic people.
Crying sudden tears of joy after her son uses Empowered Brain, a Mom realizes she feels more connected with her son than ever before. (Click above to play this TV segment from PBS Newshour.)
Empowered Brain will ship with a suite of social-emotional learning apps, including the 3 that are explained in the main video at the top of this page. These focus on 1.) decoding emotions, 2.) looking at people when they speak, and 3.) managing the stress and anxiety of transitions. They also address self-confidence, attention, learning mindset, social-referencing, and self-regulation.
These three Empowered Brain apps have already been through clinical trials in children and adults with autism. Results from these successful clinical trials have been published in peer-reviewed medical research journals (see the references section near the bottom of this page for more details).
Please see the main video (click the video-thumbnail at the top of this page) for more about each app and to see the system in action with families touched by autism.
An additional set of apps is scheduled for release shortly, as described even further below. You will receive all the apps that are available at the time of shipping, as well as perpetual patches and updates to them.
Empowered Brain includes several components that work together:
Smartglasses - Google Glass
Science-based apps that run on Glass
A companion app for iOS or Android
One parent/teacher account on our cloud-hosted web portal
“Child” accounts on the portal, with gameplay data, high scores, and social sharing
Software updates and patches
All components of the Empowered Brain system work together seamlessly.
Who are these people who want to empower your children? Click the names below to see our decades of training at top institutions.
Meet the rest of our scientists, doctors, educators, & engineers below in the full Team Section.
Autism, and our technology, are of interest to many notable people. (Pictures are not specific endorsements.)
Above: A few of the hundreds of autistic adults and children who have successfully used the Empowered Brain glasses and software by Brain Power. We have worked with young and old, speaking and non-speaking, around the country and the world.
Will my unique child be able to use it?
Our years of experience with hundreds of children and adults all along the spectrum suggest the answer is likely yes. We have published peer-reviewed scientific papers showing Empowered Brain is safe, and is usable by autistic individuals across a broad range of ages and speaking / functioning abilities.
Parents are routinely surprised their children will wear these augmented-reality glasses even if they won't wear sunglasses. It may be because these glasses convert people's faces into cartoons, play their favorite music, and turn interacting with others into a rewarding video game.
Our Founder, and the Brain Power team, are deeply committed to bringing this award-winning, technology-based yet human-centric approach to every family touched by autism. That being said, there are some facts we would like to explain briefly.
Google Glass is a very technologically advanced, and its "heads-up" nature makes it uniquely suited to instructive apps centered around social skills.
However, Glass costs $1500.
This is by far the largest part of our price, and it is for Google, not for us.
Also, we somehow must cover costs of engineering a world-class, clinical-grade product, and the salaries of our engineers, doctors, scientists, educators, and others -- several of whom identify as autistic.
Yet, out of our desire to reach families, we are offering heavy discounts on the basic package, and creative installment payments plans. Thus, you can pay less, and over time!
Brain Power's apps focus on useful and universal skills such as emotional understanding, empathy, eye contact, anxiety and stress management, attention, awareness of environment, transitions, communication skills, habits, and various cognitive skills. We take a very practical approach, and we have met with many, many families in great detail and have brought out tools into their homes and schools.
Importantly, success and progress are measured not just in terms of the specific skill in each app, such as emotion decoding or eye contact. Rather, or in addition, we see success in terms of broadly useful features such as self-confidence, sense of self, agency, and decreases in anxiety. We have clinically observed decreases in ADHD symptoms following Empowered Brain sessions. We have observed flourishing of confidence in children and young adults in their regular lives (outside of sessions with the system) that has made their parents cry in joy.
All of the Empowered Brain modules are engineered for users to teach themselves life skills crucial for happy self-sufficiency, and to generalize these skills into everyday life. We have studies how students in the classroom setting, for instance, apply the skills they learn from Empowered Brain to the rest of their schoolwork and social interactions at school.
All of this is made possible by advanced artificial intelligence and augmented reality inside our patent-pending software. However, the experience to the user (and parent/therapist) is very smooth and simple, and does not feel complicated or "academic".
The goal is to empower the user to express more of the raw intelligence, or brain power, she or he already has (but which can sometimes be locked in or masked). Founder, Dr. Ned Sahin, often says that Brain Power "uses artificial intelligence to unlock natural intelligence."
Our apps are designed somewhat like video games, drawing on our natural desire to play and to compete. You can see some of them in action in the campaign video at the top of this page.
What makes our Empowered Brain apps unique is that they are also based on brain science and the principles of a modern movement known as "serious gaming". The "gamification" of learning and even clinical therapy has been scientifically demonstrated to have a profound positive effect, even in people who don't traditionally play games.
Empowered Brain now runs on all Android smartglasses. This means that we have a long future and can adapt our system to new devices that emerge. That being said, we have selected Google Glass as the smartglasses of choice, after testing with many alternatives. You will receive a brand-new Google Glass unit in the original factory box.
It is NOT Fragile!
Empowered Brain is easy to use and we will train you ahead of time to make sure everything is smooth and great.
Your Google Glass unit is unlocked, and can be used anywhere in the world
It is easy to use and we will supply how-to videos and web-casts
You will soon be teaching other people, and watching the delight in their faces.
Glass will pair with iPhones as well as Android phones. Also, you can use it on WiFi as a completely stand-device. It does not need to be paired with a phone.
Our software is also easy to use.
Hundreds of people with autism have used and enjoyed it, as have their families.
Our clinical trials have demonstrated the system is very usable, across much of the spectrum.
A heart-breaking question that parents of children with autism have vocalized to us many times is: “What would happen to my child once I am gone?”. These and other questions are what make us take our work so deeply seriously, day and night. We are committed to working dilligently, and scientifically, for your family and families like yours, to give answers and to inspire well-grounded hope.
Empowered Brain measures numerical data and can give you a report on progress each day. This empowers you to know how your child is doing, and to make predictions about the future, grounded in real data.
We also have recently developed a set of apps and tools that focus on job-preparedness and then job coaching. Stay tuned for more information.
We know that having a job is probably the highest form of dignity and self-sufficiency, and we are committed to helping people gain employment.
Brief video explaining the Emotion Charades app. (Click above to play video.)
New England Cable News - Interview with founder Dr. Ned T. Sahin. (Click above to play this TV piece.)
Click for brief video explaining the Transition Master app
Click for brief video explaining the Face2Face app
Click above for NBC Boston TV segment including Face2Face
The apps in the Empowered Brain core pack are the ones the families we interviewed desired first. Yet our patent-pending suite of science-based apps includes many more. Here are just a few.
Job Training and Onsite Coaching. For instance, we are finalizing a set of apps that focus on job skills. These form a job-coaching and job readiness platform, and are suitable for individuals who are a bit older and/or are ready for this deeply important life transition.
Anxiety and Stress. Two of our next apps focus on reducing stress and anxiety. They can even work with non-speaking and anxiety-prone individuals. They use artificial intelligence, and patented methods for detecting biomarkers of stress.
Daily Activity Assist. For younger individuals or those working on foundational skills, we have an app that assists some of the simple daily tasks such as brushing teeth; and it makes them wildly fun and motivating.
In short, Empowered Brain includes benefits for young children all the way to adults, and people who do not speak all the way to people employed at technology companies. Stay tuned for announcements about these newest apps. There is a lot we are ready and able to do! Yet, we need your help to get there. Together, we can rewrite the future of autism! Please, Empower Us!
Empowered brain offers an unprecedented way to evaluate your child’s (or your) performance and progress. Typically a teacher, therapist, or other practitioner would write notes manually after a session. These evaluations are necessarily subjective, and rooted in the practitioner’s particular clinical experience. Our system automatically generates session notes, and they include things like second-by-second accounts of body posture and attention that could not be noted by a human observer; and evaluations can made relative to all the people using the system in the world.
After your child/client uses any of our apps or games, you can go to the web portal for a very detailed analysis of: a) the current game, b) long term progress, and c) predictions for the future.
For instance, how many hundreds of times your child looked away in an hour, when she/he correctly guessed an emotion, levels of measured stress at every moment, minutes spent rocking, which graphics or music or rewards were most preferred, etc, etc.
A) Current game and real time data the user can see.
Example report from a single session from a live clinical trial session.
The system updates the data second-by-second, so you can have a real-time report on the progress of your child during that particular session, as shown in the image above.
B) Monthly data report of the user’s progress.
Example of a progress report over the course of a month.
The system saves the information of your child’s progress for each game session on a monthly basis. It presents the information to you all in the same place.
C) Total data report of all sessions plus user’s potential growth.
Example of a performance report that is mapping the potential growth of the user.
The system saves the child’s data from each of the sessions played, provides a detailed report on his or her progress, and provides information on the child’s potential growth, based on previous performance.
The cloud-based web portal is advanced beyond anything that currently exists.
Parents often tell us it finally gives them the visibility and insight they have always wanted, and the reassurance of numerical, objective data. They appreciate that the assessment and criteria won't change if they move to a new town or new school, whereas in the past whenever they had a new doctor or teacher the whole evaluation process could start again from scratch.
Therapists (BCBA's, OT's, SLP's, etc) tell us that the idea of automatically-generated session notes, with more detailed data than ever possible, is transformative for their practice. They also say that being able to offer this advanced (yet easy-to-use) technology differentiates them from their competitors.
Brain Power has been humbled and honored to receive a wide range of international as well as community-specific awards:
Naturally Autistic People International Awards – “Excellence in Technology” award. (Awarded by an international organization comprised and run fully by autistic people.)
Boston Business Journal – "40 Under 40" Top Business People in Massachusetts
BostInno – "50 On Fire" Notable Businesses, Departments, and People
Ivy Connect – “Innovator in Technology” Finalist
Birch Family Services – Scientific Research Award
MedTech Boston – "40 UNDER 40” Top Healthcare Innovators
CYNOPSIS KIDS MEDIA AWARDS – !MAGINATION AWARD Top Educational App (Bested PBS Kids and Nickelodeon)
South by Southwest (SXSW) – Interactive Innovation Awards Finalist in 3 Categories
South by Southwest (SXSW) – Impact Pediatrics Award Finalist
You have found us on Indiegogo and you might be wondering why we are here.
IndieGoGo is often called a "crowd funding" platform, and we are most interested in the "crowd"! We want to reach you, our community, and find ways to make a difference in the lives of thousands of families we might not ever otherwise meet. That is why we are so interested in the "crowd". You can hep with this goal by posting this page in parents' groups on social media; and on your own pages. Each voice matters to us, and matters deeply.
The main use of this site is to allow pre-orders of our clinically-tested product. After careful scientific work and lots of time spent immersed in family and classroom and clinical settings with the people we wish to benefit, we are opening orders to the general public! It is an exciting time. Also, Indiegogo is convenient in that it allows us to have a digital "storefront" and it manages all the hassles of online selling, for us. Please have a read of this site and we hope you will get the system for your family.
We ship worldwide.
One thing about Indiegogo: we can only keep a campaign open for a few weeks. That is just the way it works. After that, all the selling is over, and the discounts are gone. Therefore, the time for you to get the Empowered Brain system is very limited.
We elected to use Indiegogo as a way to allow pre-orders of our Empowered Brain product.
Pre-Orders pay for the expensive hardware (Google Glass) and some of the software development we have already done.
Our team of PhD's, MD's, engineers, artists, and more have invested in it for years. We believe Empowered Brain is an extraordinary and cutting-edge product for your family. We have a clear roadmap to finalize it and get it to you. We are looking forward to serving your family's needs.
We have witnessed and can feel many of the struggles you may be going through. For instance, our founder drove around the country in an RV two years ago - visited families in West Virgina, for example, and autism clinics in Missouri, and residential (24/7 care) facilities in Tennessee, and many more. He slept in the RV, in Walmart parking lots. The goal was to immerse in the community, and learn.
We have learned, among many other things, that neither the healthcare system nor the educational system can meet all your needs. We know it is painful, and that some products and services are out of your reach. Our founder personally wants our product to reach every family in the world. However, it may take time.
Video from one of our stops on the RV trip. See children delight in using Empowered Brain for the first time. (On the RV trip, the CEO and several team members drove around the country and visited families and clinics far outside our usual zone.)
Empowered Brain represents a totally new technology. It is clinical-grade, it was created by a large team of highly-trained professionals -- and it is the first wave. Technology prices always start high, which is the bad news; but the good news is that they always come way down in price. As we built this company, we learned more about why this happens. There are many reasons. To create something like this takes the coordinated work of many, many talented people, and many costs including salaries, legal fees, infrastructure, rent, computers, clinical trials, government fees, and so much more.
Also, since most people do not have their own Google Glass, we need to include one in our package. The price of Google Glass was set by Google - at $1500. We cannot control that. Luckily, it is a fantastic device, and we have selected it after trying many alternatives.
Eventually, however, the up-front costs like clinical trials and initial development will be repaid. Device prices will come down and devices will be more common. Accordingly we will bring prices down even further.
For now, we are doing the best we can to keep prices low even in this first wave, yet somehow we must pay our staff, and the other costs mentioned above.
Additionally, we created a payments plan, in response to many parents who asked for it. This allows you to pay over time. This means we bear more of the cost and risk, but it means your burden is lower, and we want to help in that way.
Also, many families find funds available that can help them, for instance from health savings accounts, local charities, Medicaid, Elks and Freemasons and other orders, school technology funds, and more.
However, if this is still out of reach, please stay in touch over the year and years. With time, we will find other ways to get something to you and to other families like yours. We are truly committed to "empower every brain"!
PAYMENT PLAN
Several parents told us that it is difficult to order the system with a single transaction, and also that the total cost is difficult in this Holiday time of year. We listened!
Indieogogo itself does not offer any "payment plans", for instance where you can pay off the purchase over a long period of time. On Indiegogo every purchase must be paid in a single transaction, immediately. Also, everything must be complete before the end of the campaign (Dec 22) and there is no option to continue after that. This is just the nature of pre-order or crowdfunding campaigns on Indiegogo. Therefore, we needed to be creative to respond to your requests!
We separated the price into 4 payments or installments!
We applied a very significant discount (temporarily!) to introduce this offer.
In order to work with the Indiegogo system, we put a single "Partial Payment" item into the list of available items. To make all 4 payments, you would simply get this item 4 times. This offers the most flexibility, for the largest range of families. Here is how it works:
If you purchase the "Partial Payment" option, you are in the system! Congratulations!
That single payment is like a "down payment" and it guarantees your place in line so that you will get the Empowered Brain system eventually.
You still need to make the remaining 3 payments, but there are some options.
If all 3 payments are completed within the duration of the campaign, you own Empowered Brain system (yay!) and you are a VIP. You will get yours first - before any other group.
You will also receive a bonus of VIP training on your new system, and special support.
To state it again, all you need to do in order to join the Brain Power mission and be guaranteed to get this science-based, engaging augmented-reality system for autism, is to make that first payment now.
There won't be another chance to order it for a while. (After the campaign we want to get back to the science and the speaking with families, rather than all this campaigning!)
Consider asking friends and family to order one or more of the Payment perks for you. Some parents have put this on their wish-list as a great Holiday gift. Some parents have done this as a way to ask for a small loan.
Don't worry - we will keep track of everything and make sure the contribution makes its ways to your family. (It is easiest if the contributor puts your name in the "contribution appearance" section on the form, but it is not necessary. )
Learn more about the features of our advanced hardware and custom-coded software in Empowered Brain:
“Rumors of my demise are much exaggerated...” ~Bemused Glass
Breaking News - Glass is Still Alive!
Google Glass, version 2 (known as “Glass Enterprise Edition”) was announced to the public in July of 2017! Prior to the announcement, we have long tested our software on Enterprise Edition, e.g. during our clinical trials, to assure it runs properly on both versions. The results are good news -- for Empowered Brain and for the whole “smartglasses” product category. The heads-up computer category is here to stay. We are committed to a future in which technology helps people connect, and overcome challenges.
Hot Fact - Brain Power is a Glass Partner!
Brain Power is an official partner of Google (or rather of the Glass team at X, as it is now known)! We were selected based on our long-standing relationship built since the early days of the Google Glass Explorers Program. Now we are one of the very few groups who can sell you Glass - whether Explorer Edition, or Enterprise Edition.
We have coded our software to run on many different platforms.
We have done the hard work. We have many, many units ready to finalize and ship to you. Join us on the exciting last stages of our journey. Help us to empower you!
We have been featured in over 250 press or TV appearances.
Everyone on our team is strongly committed to our mission and firmly believes in the system. At the moment, we are excited to have a group of PhDs, MDs, skilled engineers, videographers, artists, marketers, and more in our growing team.
We actively hire people on the autism spectrum. These members of our team are fully integrated and included. They provide us with amazing feedback and contribute substantially to the development of our company!
Julie, graphic artist at Brain Power, on the autism spectrum, working with the CEO and other team members.
Dr. Ned Sahin and the Brain Power team have developed deep relationships and partnerships with some major companies and research universities in the relatively short life of the company:
What is included in Empowered Brain?
Empowered Brain includes:
A new Google Glass unit in the original box
Science-based apps that run on Google Glass
A companion app for phones and tablets (iOS/Apple or Android)
One parent/teacher account on our cloud-hosted web portal, with ongoing progress reports for each child and predictions of developmental progress
Three “child” accounts on the portal with gameplay data, high scores, and social sharing,
School packs and the therapist pack include many more child accounts
Software updates and patches forever
What skillset does Empowered Brain address?
Empowered Brain’s apps are engineered to empower users to teach themselves life skills crucial for happy self-sufficiency. For example, Emotion Charades is a game that helps teach emotion identification. The Player looks through the Google Glass screen and sees emojis on either side of their partner’s face. With a quick head tilt, he/she chooses which emoji correctly matches their partner’s facial expression, and earns gems. Unlike with other emotion-learning apps in which the Player is looking down at a tablet or phone, our software encourages social interaction with other people, keeping the Player heads-up and hands-free.
Drawing on everyone’s natural desire to play, the apps are played like video games - but they are based on brain science, and draw on the decades of validated success of behavioral interventions for autism.
BTW, our system is designed to be used for 30 min to an hour a day: your child/student will not have to wear it all day to benefit.
I’m a Therapist or Teacher. Will Empowered Brain replace my job? Or make it better?
You are not replaceable! But you do probably spend a lot of your time documenting observations in sessions and following up on behaviors between visits. The Empowered Brain system essentially takes your notes for you, including ones that weren’t possible before - accurately detailing each time the child looks at you or Mom, the duration of stimming episodes, accuracy of emotion decoding, awareness of a new environment, and even heart and breathing rates during the lessons.
Empowered Brain even allows you to review and monitor your clients’ progress between sessions - and because the apps feel like games, your client is more likely to perform. Our goal is to complement your efforts, and help you engage and encourage skill development more efficiently for more clients.
I’m a parent - can Empowered Brain replace certain therapies?
Empowered Brain is designed to carry on where therapist visits leave off, making it easier and more likely for your child to practice certain key skills. It also allows the therapist to monitor progress remotely and for each visit. If your child improves more rapidly and consistently because of Empowered Brain, it gets him/her on a track to self-sufficiency more rapidly and makes the therapist’s job more efficient.
The system is designed to unlock more power from each therapist visit via better and more engaged practice between visits, closer monitoring, and science-based activities that are designed to speed up progress. In this way, you can get more value from the dollars spent or therapy sessions used, and advance your child further on the path of self-sufficiency and integration.
Will this work for my unique child?
We have tested our system with hundreds of children and adults on the autism spectrum!
Parents are routinely surprised by the fact that their child can tolerate Google Glass and our software, and are even more surprised at how rapidly and easily they learn to use it. Many times in our clinical trial sessions or informal tests, the child is teaching the parent how to use the system within a few minutes! We’ve studied this formally and scientifically during clinical trials in a wide age range, across the autism spectrum. Papers from Stage 1 of our trials are starting to emerge in peer-reviewed scientific and medical literature. For instance, see the following papers [1] [2] [3] [4]
We cannot guarantee it will work for your unique child, but based on our experience, there is a much better chance than you may think.
Isn’t Google Glass dead?
No! Please see the details further up in this campaign page.
(The quick answer is: they released a new version of Google Glass just this summer, proving the program is continuing (which we already knew), and Brain Power was selected as one of their few official distribution partners. We are one of the very few companies who can sell Glass! Also, other manufacturers aside from Google are releasing smartglasses, so there are additional options.)
Will Empowered Brain be possible for my child to wear? She/he doesn’t even like sunglasses.
Well, what do sunglasses do for your child? They mostly put a high-contrast boundary in peripheral vision, where the glasses leave off and the bright sunlight crashes in. That’s neither pleasant nor sensible, and the long-term benefits of wearing sunglasses are relatively remote to a child.
With our glasses, you might become a cartoon character, or a way to earn gold stars and points! The world seems different and more fun, and is on kids’ terms. Our glasses are also a vehicle toward the things that matter so dearly to a child, such as fitting in, getting a date, being invited, and eventually getting a job.
Ultimately that might seem a lot more valuable to a child than sunglasses. And in the end, any minor inconvenience of wearing something may be outweighed by its benefit, in the same way people ultimately learn to wear shoes or clothing. But again, don’t take our word for it -- take a look at our videos and published papers!
Can adults also benefit from using Empowered Brain?
Yes. Our current apps span a range of functioning levels and ages, and the apps in development will extend that range even further. For instance, many of us adults can benefit from coaching in subtleties such as knowing when to look at people, knowing what they’re feeling, and knowing how to mirror back their facial expressions at precisely the right time to make them feel valued and heard. Also, stay tuned for some exciting developments in the works, including job training and job coaching for adults on the spectrum.
Is it comfortable to wear for hours?
You don’t have to!
Think of this like piano lessons. You carry neither your piano nor teacher all day with you, but a half hour or hour a day of concentrated practice teaches the brain needed skills, and goes a long way!
That being said, the device is comfortable and light; and in our scientific studies no major negative effects were reported.
Can one system be used by multiple family members?
Yes. Like many families use a single computer or iPad for several children, you can give them each a chance to use our apps and benefit in their own customized way. With your parent account you can create up to 3 child accounts (more for teacher or therapist accounts). Each child's game progress is stored separately -- this way, they can even have a competition! That being said, some children may want or need their own system, much as they may want their own phone or iPad.
Is it hard to set up and use? And do I need to sign up for anything else to use my system (like one has to sign up for phone service to use a phone?)
No. Setup is quick. Instructions and short “how-to” videos are in your parent/teacher account. You can connect Glass to the internet via WiFi or your phone.
What is the warranty or return policy?
If our software is malfunctioning we will deliver patches remotely to fix it. If it cannot be fixed remotely, we will accept the device back and fix the software. If the hardware breaks, we cannot fix the hardware -- it is all sealed and self-contained like a phone so it is not serviceable and we are not hardware engineers. We cannot issue refunds of your orders. However, when you receive Empowered Brain you will have 15 days to test it, and to return it for a refund if it does not work for you.
Every dollar you help raise translates directly to helping children and adults on the spectrum.
Is the system trying to “normalize” people with autism?
No. At Brain Power we are deeply respectful of people on the autism spectrum, and of each human being’s right and desire to independently express his or her own personality. There is no one normal and there is no one right way to be. We already have multiple apps for multiple types of skills and are making more. We try to make very different experiences for different challenges, and we focus on challenges that affect everyone (but generally affect people on the spectrum more).
At the core, our mission is about happy self-sufficiency, and about empowering you and your child to unlock the prodigious power of every brain.
CLINICALLY PROVEN
The scientific team at Brain Power has previously authored several dozen peer-reviewed papers in high-impact medical journals, including Science and Nature Neuroscience.
Below are some of the papers from the first part of Stage 1 of the Empowered Brain clinical trials. They include the first appearance in the scientific literature of the new version of Google Glass (the Enterprise Edition), and the first appearance of autism-related work on any version of Glass. The papers clinically demonstrate that Empowered Brain is a safe, feasible, and tolerable approach to aid children and adults on the autism spectrum. They also show that the system can function for individuals aged 4 to 24 and older, speaking and non-speaking, in clinic and at school.
Additional papers are emerging soon - stay tuned!
Tolerable across the spectrum:
Keshav NU, Salisbury JP, Vahabzadeh A, and Sahin NT. (2017) Social Communication Coaching Smartglasses: Well Tolerated in a Diverse Sample of Children and Adults With Autism. JMIR mHealth uHealth 2017;5(9):e140. (PDF Here)
Reduces ADHD symptoms:
Vahabzadeh A, Keshav NU, Salisbury JP, and Sahin NT. (2017) Improvement of ADHD-Related Symptoms in School Age Children and Young Adults with Autism via a Smartglasses-Based Socio-Emotional Coaching Aid. Interactive Journal of Medical Research. (PDF here)
Feasible: People with autism do wear it, happily:
Liu R, Salisbury JP, Vahabzadeh A, and Sahin NT. (2017) Feasibility of an Autism-Focused Augmented Reality Smartglasses System for Social Communication and Behavioral Coaching. Frontiers in Pediatrics. 5:145. (click here for PDF)
Safety: Safe across children and adults with ASD:
Sahin NT, Keshav NU, Salisbury JP, and Vahabzadeh A. (2017) An Augmented Reality Social Communication Aid for Children and Adults with Autism: User and caregiver report of safety and lack of negative effects. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence. (PDF here)
Desirable for school. And Google Glass version 2 in use:
Sahin NT, Keshav NU, Salisbury JP, and Vahabzadeh A. (2017) Second Version of Google Glass as a Wearable Socio-Affective Aid in Children with Autism: Theoretical Basis, High Usability, and Positive Desirability for School Use . JMIR Human Factors. (PDF here)
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