Strength training increases strength in partially paralysed muscles of people with recent SCI, although it is not clear whether the size of the treatment effect is clinically meaningful. Strength training has no deleterious effects on spasticity.

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Robotic assistive technology is today widely used in rehabilitation. Social assistive robotics (SAR) is one of the developing areas of research with potential advantages for areas involving elderly care, people with cognitive impairment, rehabilitation for people with physical disabilities and for educational purposes. Cerebral palsy (CP) is a common neurological disorder among children that impairs motor function and may involve cognitive function. The use of social assistive robotic technology serves as a potential approach for CP rehabilitation. The objective of this paper is to review published articles regarding SAR in rehabilitation for children with CP. Twelve published studies have been identified and will be discussed in this review paper.

Autism cannot run away from their triangle deficits: social, communication and stereotyped behaviour. There is no cure for autism or any definitive treatment to treat the core symptoms of this developmental disorder. However, the deficits can be minimized by maximize their learning through behavioural therapy and educational intervention. Nowadays, the methods in the rehabilitation of autism have been upgraded by the innovation of humanoid robots, in particular the humanoid robot NAO. In this study, NAO has being programmed using Choregraphe as programming tool to develop lesson modules for children with autism to practice their social interaction skill. This paper focuses specifically on social interaction subscale to observe the behaviour of the autistic children during interaction with the humanoid robot NAO. The observation is based on six items referenced from the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale-second edition (GARS-2). The use of humanoid robot NAO in the rehabilitation of autistic children is expected to help them to interact and practice their social traits just like normal children. The results evidently showed that children with autism are positively affected by NAO by giving encouraging responses in social interaction when interacting with the robot. Two-way communication between the child and robot in real time significantly give positive impact in the responses towards the robot.

Humanoids have increasingly become the focus of attention in robotic research, especially in rehabilitation robotics. In the past few years, the prevalence of Cerebral Palsy (CP) in the world population has remained unchanged. CP is one of the most common disorders affecting muscle control and coordination in children, resulting in movement disorders. There are assistive technologies that are used for increasing, maintaining or improving the functional abilities of CP children. However, there is still a lack of interventional; therapy which involves Social Assistive Robotics (SAR). Socially assistive technologies have great potential in education & learning for children, especially for children with disabilities. Problems faced by children with CP may not be confined to physical impairment but may in addition have impairments of cognition, visual, language and communication. Therefore, combining physical, speech and language and occupational therapy with cognitive and social development is very important. This paper aims to describe the architecture of using humanoid robot NAO as a tool to augment physical learning for CP children. This work is mainly based on qualitative study, which is aimed to analyze how the HRI impacts the motor gross function and attention. This paper will describe the aim, objectives, methodology, and experiment layout. Experiment with CP children will be done in the near future after obtaining ethical approval from UiTM Ethics Committee. The outcome of the study may exhibit positive utilization of the humanoid robot NAO as a new intervention tool to augment therapy for children with CP.

The present study aims to further explore Malaysian secondary English teachers’ perspective on the use of PULSE 2 in their language classrooms, after three years of its introduction in Malaysian secondary schools. The study is qualitative in nature, employing semi-structured interview as the approach for data collection the data. However, due to the Movement Control Order (MCO) the study was conducted through a Mobile Instant Messaging (MIM) application, WhatsApp. ATLAS ti. was employed to perform the content analysis to the collected data. The findings revealed that the respondents preferred to use imported English textbooks with local modifications in their language classroom.  Most of them also felt that the level of the language content and skills offered by PULSE2 did not match with their students’ abilities. They also reported grouses about the difficult foreign content of PULSE 2, which indicated that they have yet to change their mind about it even after using it for three years. It is suggested that relevant stakeholders such as the Ministry of Education Malaysia (MOE) to review the use of imported textbooks such as PULSE 2 in Malaysia, as this will bear an impact on the creation of the country’s version of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) called ‘CEFR-M’ as projected in the on-going English Language Education Reform in Malaysia by 2025. Not only that, selecting a textbook that is relatable, localized, and matches the students’ level is crucial in this COVID-19 era, where the new normal in education forces learning to be done remotely. Inevitably, there will be students who are less privileged, and  their only hope to gain access to continuous education is through a textbook that can easily be used for self-study and is readily available, without having the needs to have access to advanced technological devices.

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