A Long-Term Engagement with a Social Robot for Autism Therapy

Abstract

Social robots are increasingly being used as a mediator between a therapist and a child in autism therapy studies. In this context, most behavioural interventions are typically short-term in nature. This paper describes a long-term study that was conducted with 11 children diagnosed with either Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or ASD in co-occurrence with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). It uses a quantitative analysis based on behavioural measures, including engagement, valence, and eye gaze duration. Each child interacted with a robot on several occasions in which each therapy session was customized to a child’s reaction to robot behaviours. This paper presents a set of robot behaviours that were implemented with the goal to offer a variety of activities to be suitable for diverse forms of autism. Therefore, each child experienced an individualized robot-assisted therapy that was tailored according to the therapist’s knowledge and judgement. The statistical analyses showed that the proposed therapy managed to sustain children’s engagement. In addition, sessions containing familiar activities kept children more engaged compared to those sessions containing unfamiliar activities. The results of the interviews with parents and therapists are discussed in terms of therapy recommendations. The paper concludes with some reflections on the current study as well as suggestions for future studies.

A Systematic Review of Research on Robot-Assisted Therapy for Children with Autism

“…For the experimental articles, we classified the type of robot used in the experiment into five categories: human-like, animal-like, toy-like, machine-like, and wearable robots; From our review, we found that the majority of the articles (ten articles) used a human-like robot in their studies [ 2 , 6 , 9 , 10 , 14 , 18 , 19 , 21 , 24 , 37 ], seven articles used an animal-like robot [ 27 , 28 , 29 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 36 ], five articles used a toy-like robot [ 17 , 20 , 22 , 23 , 30 ], two articles used a machine-like robot [ 25 , 35 ], and only one article used a wearable robot [ 34 ].…”

“…We found that 40% of the articles (ten articles) used human-like robots. Nao, a well-known (in the market) human-like robot, was used in 32% of the studies (eight articles) [ 2 , 9 , 10 , 14 , 18 , 19 , 24 , 37 ]. Another human-like robot named Kasper was used in two studies [ 6 , 21 ].…”

“…Most importantly, diagnosing a person with ASD is difficult, and the process differs from one therapist to another. The medical center might also affect treatment and have high costs [ 2 , 3 , 4 ].…”

Effects of Parental Involvement in Robot-Assisted Autism Therapy

“…They were predominantly based on the Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) principles and targeted socio-emotional behaviors. To this end, we implemented 26 activities in two local languages (Kazakh and Russian) and categorized them into six groups ("Songs", "Dances", "Emotions", "Social Acts", "Imitations", "Storytelling" and "Touch Me" (see Telisheva et al, 2019;Rakhymbayeva et al, 2021). Descriptions of each group are provided in Table 3.…”

10 Years of Human-NAO Interaction Research: A Scoping Review

“…Long-term engagement: Although cross-sectional studies are commonplace due to different technological and methodological constraints, it is feasible to commit to long-term goals and test the efficacy of NAO and its capabilities. The user studies in robotassisted educational and therapeutic settings need convincing evidence of the robot's long-term efficacy, especially those working with underserved populations (Rakhymbayeva et al, 2021).…”