Development of Imitation Learning through Physical Therapy Using a Humanoid Robot

Abstract

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.

Humanoid Robot Enhancing Social and Communication Skills of Autistic Children: Review

“…Different Methodology uses to act with ASD including studies, diagnostic practice, and an expert (Robins et al, 2009). Many researchers conclude that ASDs have a difference of causes, but they agree that ASD affects the same brain systems (Miskam et al, 2014;Malik et al, 2014). Moreover, the interview and observational methods have clear advantages and disadvantages.…”

Integration of a Social Robot in a Pedagogical and Logopedic Intervention with Children: A Case Study

“…The use of social robots in education has been found very useful in personalizing each child’s needs supporting individual learning across various domains [ 23 , 24 ]. Therefore, teachers and education therapists are considering humanoid robots as a useful tool for their practice [ 25 , 26 , 27 ]. This is because they are designed to be interactive with humans.…”

“…NAO has demonstrated to be a friendly robotic platform with children in several experiments such as [ 35 ], [ 36 ], and [ 37 ]. It is used with children in areas such as education [ 38 ], as well as emotional and behavioral analysis [ 39 , 40 , 41 ], physical therapy [ 27 ], health and social care [ 42 , 43 ], and autism therapies [ 44 , 45 ]. Based on its wide range of applications, we chose the NAO robot as a platform to provide help to therapists for the acquisition of language skills with the assumption that NAO is ready to be incorporated as an assistant into a pedagogical and logopedic intervention.…”

NAOMOBBY, development of a computer vision and robotics-based software tool to support rehabilitation in upper limb physical therapies

“…The human body is used to perform primary motor movements, or express emotions. [9] and [10] are works focused in these two aspects. In [9], authors used the NAO robot to help children to identify and express 9 different body gestures.…”

“…In [9], authors used the NAO robot to help children to identify and express 9 different body gestures. And, in [10], authors used the NAO robot to teach children primary motor movements. In both cases, the user movement is not validated, nor the therapy progress is measured.…”