Comparing automated and non-automated machine learning for autism spectrum disorders classification using facial images

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder associated with cognitive and neurobehavioral disorders. It affects the person's behavior and performance. Autism affects verbal and non-verbal communication in social interactions. Early screening and diagnosis of ASD are essential and helpful for early educational planning and treatment, the provision of family support, and for providing appropriate medical support for the child on time. Thus, developing automated methods for diagnosing ASD is becoming an essential need. Herein, we investigate using various machine learning methods to build predictive models for diagnosing ASD in children using facial images. To achieve this, we used an autistic children dataset containing 2936 facial images of children with autism and typical children. In application, we used classical machine learning methods, such as support vector machine and random forest. In addition to using deep-learning methods, we used a state-of-the-art method, that is, automated machine learning (AutoML). We compared the results obtained from the existing techniques. Consequently, we obtained that AutoML achieved the highest performance of approximately 96% accuracy via the Hyperpot and tree-based pipeline optimization tool optimization. Furthermore, AutoML methods enabled us to easily find the best parameter settings without any human efforts for feature engineering.