ParentGuardian is a wrist sensor and app that helps parents of children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) by giving them effective and real-time coping strategies and monitoring their stress levels. It was created by scientists at the University of California alongside Microsoft Research.
ParentGuardian uses the 'Parenting Behavioral Therapy' approach that is designed to help parents manage their own stress as well as improve self-control and self-awareness in children with ADHD.
The sensor detects changes in wearers' galvanic skin response -- the electrical conductivity of their skin -- associated with strong emotions. Users begin by training and calibrating the system to help it figure out what conductivity levels correspond to what moods and states of mind.
When parents experience strong emotions, the ParentGuardian sensor transmits its data to a cloud-based server, which analyzes the data before alerting the parent via an accompanying smartphone or tablet app. The notifications ask parents to take steps such as taking deep breaths or stopping to think about how best to help their child.
What Makes This Trend Stand Out
- Stress Monitoring Technology
- Opportunities for startups to develop stress monitoring devices for other medical conditions and demographics.
- Behavioral Therapy Apps
- Opportunities to build apps that help improve self-control and self-awareness in other demographics beyond ADHD.
- Cloud-based Analytics
- Opportunities to use cloud servers to analyze user data in real-time for other applications beyond stress monitoring.
Sectors Adopting This
- Health and Wellness
- Opportunities for health and wellness companies to expand into stress monitoring technology.
- Education Technology
- Opportunities to develop apps that help parents and caregivers support the education of children with ADHD or other learning challenges.
- Cloud Computing
- Opportunities for cloud computing firms to build more sophisticated and secure data analytics tools for a range of industries.
