Interactive robots for communication-care: a case-study in autism therapy

Abstract

The paper proposes possible use of interactive robots in the remedial practice for children with autism, who have difficulties mainly in interpersonal communication. For this purpose, we built a small creature-like robot, Keepon, which was carefully designed to get autistic and non-autistic children involved in playful interaction. We observed how autistic children (2-4 years old) interacted with Keepon without any experimental setting or instructions in a playroom at a day-care center for children with special needs. From the longitudinal observation for a year and a half (totally, over 500 child-sessions), we found that Keepon's simple appearance and predictable responses gave the autistic children a playful and relaxed mood, in which they spontaneously engaged in dyadic play with Keepon, which would then expand into interpersonal communication where Keepon worked as the pivot of triadic play with adults or other children. Each child showed a different style and a different unfolding of interaction over time, which tell us a "story" of his or her personality and developmental profile, which would not be explained thoroughly by a diagnostic label like "autism".

Socialization between toddlers and robots at an early childhood education center

“…Recent years have seen impressive advances in the mechanical aspects of this problem, yet progress on social interaction has been slower (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15). Research suggests that low-level information, such as animacy, contingency, and visual appearance, can trigger powerful social behaviors toward robots during the first few minutes of interaction (16,17).…”

Los robots sociales como promotores de la comunicación en los Trastornos del Espectro Autista (TEA)

“…Los robots destinados a este tipo de aplicaciones deben ser tan simples como sean posible dado que si estos tienen un comportamiento complejo podrían transmitir demasiada información y podrían asustar y abrumar a los niños con TEA (kOzImA;NAkAGAWA;yASUDA, 2005). De acuerdo con Cabibihan et al (2013) los robots destinados para el tratamiento de los niños con TEA deben contar con una serie de requisitos de diseño en relación a la apariencia, funcionalidad, requisitos de seguridad, autonomía, modularidad y adaptabilidad.…”

Maggie: A Social Robot as a Gaming Platform

“…Through those means, she can move the robot in order to make it tell a story. Similarly, other works have focused in the help of autistic children [17], [18], [7].…”