ABSTRACT
This article presents a study with five children with autism who were involved in a game. As relatively little work has been done on using robots in a classroom setting for children with autism, this paper investigates the potential use of robots as an educational companion for children with autism in a classroom setting. The target users were pre-schoolers diagnosed with high-functioning autism. The aim of the study was to find out how turn-taking games with a robot among the children could encourage social interaction skills in children with autism. Behavioral criteria such as eye gaze and touch were evaluated using video data. Based on our observation, autistic children with low social communication scores have a lower ratio of eye contact compare to autistic children with high social communication. The analysis of behavioral observations also revealed that the autistic children with higher scores of social communication skills directed significantly more eye gaze and touch towards the robot. This finding supports the idea that robot was suitable for encouraging interaction. But the results reveal a need for long term studies in order to establish the full benefits of using robots in the classroom for children with autism.
- Barnett, K. A. 1972. A theoretical construct of the concepts of touch as they relate to nursing. Science, 21, 102--110.Google Scholar
- Beatbots, 2012. Beatbots research. {online}. http://beatbots.net/research/.Google Scholar
- Cheng, M., 2011. Robot teaches autistic kids to interact. {online}. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41967936/ns.Google Scholar
- Colton, M., Ricks, D., Goodrich, M., Dariush, B., Fujimura, K., and Fukiki, M. 2009. Toward therapist-in-the-loop assistive robotics for children with autism and specific language impairment. In AISB Symposium: New Frontiers in Human-Robot Interaction.Google Scholar
- Dautenhahn, K. 2003. Roles and functions of robots in human society: implications from research in autism therapy. Robotica 21, 4, 443--452. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Field, T. 2003. Touch. Cambridge MA MIT Press.Google Scholar
- Fridlund, A. 1996. Human facial expression: An evolutionary view. Academic Press.Google Scholar
- Geldard, F. A. 1960. Some neglected possibilities of communication. Nursing Research, 131, 1583--1588.Google Scholar
- Ginsburg, K. R. 2007. The importance of play in promoting healthy child development and maintaining strong parent-child bonds. American Academy of Pediatrics Clinical Report - Pediatrics 119, 1, 182--191.Google Scholar
- Giullian, N., Ricks, D. J., Atherton, J. A., Colton, M. B., Goodrich, M. A., and Brinton, B. 2010. Detailed requirements for robots in autism therapy. In SMC, 2595--2602.Google Scholar
- Harlow, H. 1958. The nature of love. American Psychologist, 13, 673--685.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Hertenstein, M., Holmes, R., McCullough, M., and Keltner, D. 2009. The communication of emotion via touch. Emotion, 9, 4, 566--573.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Marti, P., Moderini, C., Guisti, L., and Pollini, A. 2009. A robotic toy for children with special needs: From requirements to design. In Proceedings of the IEEE 11th International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics.Google Scholar
- Michaud, F., and Caron, S. 2002. Roball, the rolling robot. Auton. Robots 12, 2, 211--222. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Michaud, F., and Theberge-Turmel, C., 2001. Mobile robotic toys and autism.Google Scholar
- PhysOrg.com, 2007. Robots to help children to form relationships. {online}. http://phys.org/news99649531.html.Google Scholar
- Ricks, D., and Colton, M. 2010. Trends and considerations in robot-assisted autism therapy. In 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 4354--4359.Google Scholar
- Robins, B., Dautenhahn, K., te Boekhorst, R., and Billard, A. 2004. Effects of repeated exposure to a humanoid robot on children with autism. In Proceedings of the Universal Access and Assistive Technology (CWUATT).Google Scholar
- Robins, B., Dickerson, P., Stribling, P., and Dautenhahn, K. 2004. Robot-mediated joint attention in children with autism: A case study in robot-human interaction. Interaction Studies, 5, 2, 161--198.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Robins, B., Dautenhahn, K., Boekhorst, R. T., and Billard, A. 2005. Robotic assistants in therapy and education of children with autism: can small humanoid robot help encourage social interaction skills? In Universal Access in the Information Society, vol. 4, 182--191. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Robins, B., Otero, N., Ferrari, E., and Dautenhahn, K. 2007. Eliciting requirements for a robotic toy for children with autism - results from user panels. In Proceedings of the 16th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication -RO-MAN, 101--106.Google Scholar
- Scassellati, B. 2005. How social robots will help us to diagnose, treat, and understand autism. In Proceedings of the 12th International. Symposium on Robotics Research.Google Scholar
- Young, C., 2005. About the ethics of professional touch. {online}. http://www.eabp.org/pdf/TheEthicsofTouch.pdf.Google Scholar
- Yow, A. P., Campolo, D., and Wong, H. Y. A. 2012. Design of a robotic platform for behavioral analysis of autistic children. In 25th Annual Conference on Computer Animation and Social Agents,.Google Scholar
Index Terms
- Developing a robotic platform to play with pre-school autistic children in a classroom environment
Recommendations
Facilitating Pretend Play in Autistic Children: Results from an Augmented Reality App Evaluation
ASSETS '18: Proceedings of the 20th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and AccessibilityAutistic children find pretend play difficult. Previous work suggests Augmented Reality (AR) has potential in eliciting pretend play in children with autism. This paper presents the evaluation of an Augmented Reality app to help autistic children engage ...
The role of robotic toys in shaping play and joint engagement in autistic children: Implications for future design
AbstractAutistic children are thought to develop social attention skills differently from non-autistic children. Previous work has shown that technology, and specifically tangible toys, could have the potential to support social attention in ...
Comments