An Adaptive Multi-Robot Therapy for Improving Joint Attention and Imitation of ASD Children

Abstract

Robot-mediated therapies for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have shown promising results in the past. We have proposed a novel mathematical model based on an adaptive multi-robot therapy of ASD children focusing on two main impairments in autism: 1) joint attention and 2) imitation. Joint attention intervention is based on three different least-to-most (LTM) cues, whereas the adaptive imitation module uses joint attention for activation of the robot. The proposed model uses a multi-robot system as a therapist without any external stimuli (from the environment) to improve the skills of the ASD child. Another novel aspect of this paper is the deployment of a multi-robot system for introducing the ASD child to the concept of multi-person communication. This is particularly useful as, unlike humans, robots can be more consistent and relatively immune to fatigue. Two different therapies of human-robot interaction (i.e., with and without interrobot communication) have been conducted. The model has been tested on 12 ASD children, eight sessions for each intervention over a period of six months. The effectiveness of the model is validated by analyzing the cognitive state of the brain before and after the intervention with electroencephalogram (EEG) neuroheadsets. Moreover, results obtained using the childhood autism rating scale (CARS) to measure the effectiveness of therapy also support the conclusions firmly. The statistical results with the p-value = 3.79E-07 < 0.05 and the F value = 23.93>3.28 show reliability and significance of the data. The results strongly indicate significant improvements in both modules, along with a notable improvement in multi-communication skills of the participating children.

Comparing the Effectiveness of Different Reinforcement Stimuli in a Robotic Therapy for Children With ASD

“…The proposed therapy uses a NAO humanoid robot for ASD children. NAO is widely used for therapies in autism because of its anthropomorphic appearance [35], [36]. The robot is programmed to give three different kinds of stimuli to categorize the most effective stimulus for a particular level of autism.…”

Measuring the Scale and Scope of Workplace Bullying: An Alternative Workplace Bullying Scale

“…The generalizability of the existing bullying scales in countries like Pakistan, where English is not the first language must also be considered, because some words convey different meanings in different cultures. Sometimes, it is also hard to find suitable substitute for a particular English word while translating the statements, which may change its meaning, especially when using technical terms in a specific context [29][30][31]. Language barriers could also influence the accurate assessment of workplace bullying.…”

Novel Framework for Outdoor Mobility Assistance and Auditory Display for Visually Impaired People

“…In addition to VIPs' outdoor mobility, computer vision and data processing approaches have been applied into diverse application domains such as autonomous vehicles for the intelligent traffic sign recognition [14], video surveillance [15] for the real-time tracking object tracking, aerospace [16,17] for live cockpit monitoring, underground mapping of objects [18], clustering of objects [19], biomedical [20,21] for skin lesions characterisation and diabetes prediction, robotics [22][23][24][25] for multi-sensor data fusion, multi-obstacle detection [26] using laser scanner, self-driving cars [27], speech template matching [28,29], healthcare technologies [30][31][32][33][34][35], and other adjacent domains. Likewise, recent research advancement include autonomous scene recognition using advance computer vision.…”