Animation-based Depression Evaluation (AIDE): An instrument to evaluate depressive symptoms for people with intellectual disability

Depression has been under-diagnosed and undertreated among people with intellectual disabilities, due in part to difficulty with adequately describing thoughts, feelings, and emotions, low literacy levels, and lack of understanding of the concepts being evaluated and potential physical limitations. This research project undertakes the initial development of animation-based health measures for assessing depression symptoms for people with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities. The interdisciplinary team, including faculty members in Nursing, Film and Media Arts, and Special Education, and a psychiatric clinician from the Neurobehavior HOME, accomplished the first phrase of this research (1) identification of representative assessments in depressive symptomatology, (2) animation development, and (3) animation production as a prototype of AIDE.