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Analyzing Teleoperation Interface Usage of Robots in Therapy for Children with Autism

Published: 24 June 2021 Publication History

Abstract

Therapist-operated robots can play a uniquely impactful role in helping children with autism practice and acquire social skills. While extensive research within Human-Robot Interaction has focused on teleoperation interfaces for robots in general, little work has been done on teleoperation interface design for robots in the context of therapy for children with autism. Moreover, while clinical research has shown the positive impact robots can have on children with autism, much of that research has been performed in a controlled environment, with little understanding of the way these robots are used in practice. We analyze archival data of therapists teleoperating robots as part of their regular therapy sessions, to (1) determine common themes and difficulties in therapists’ use of teleoperation interfaces, and (2) provide design recommendations to improve therapists’ overall experience. We believe that following these recommendations will help maximize the effectiveness of therapy for children with autism when using Socially Assistive Robotics and the scale at which robots can be deployed in this domain.

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cover image ACM Conferences
IDC '21: Proceedings of the 20th Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference
June 2021
697 pages
ISBN:9781450384520
DOI:10.1145/3459990
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Published: 24 June 2021

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Author Tags

  1. Autism
  2. Case Studies
  3. Social Skills Training
  4. Socially Assistive Robotics

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IDC '21: Interaction Design and Children
June 24 - 30, 2021
Athens, Greece

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  • (2024)A Robot Dialogue Authoring Interface with Smart CapabilitiesCompanion of the 2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction10.1145/3610978.3640555(442-446)Online publication date: 11-Mar-2024
  • (2024)Hardships in the Land of Oz: Robot Control Challenges Faced by HRI Researchers and Real-World Teleoperators2024 33rd IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (ROMAN)10.1109/RO-MAN60168.2024.10731251(1914-1921)Online publication date: 26-Aug-2024
  • (2024)Understanding Barriers to Entry and Invisible Labor for Educational Care Wizards2024 33rd IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (ROMAN)10.1109/RO-MAN60168.2024.10731220(1287-1293)Online publication date: 26-Aug-2024
  • (2024)Social Robots: A Promising Tool to Support People with Autism. A Systematic Review of Recent Research and Critical Analysis from the Clinical PerspectiveReview Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders10.1007/s40489-024-00434-5Online publication date: 29-Feb-2024
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  • (2023)Socially Assistive Robot Use in the Classroom as Robot Assisted InterventionsUsing Assistive Technology for Inclusive Learning in K-12 Classrooms10.4018/978-1-6684-6424-3.ch001(1-23)Online publication date: 30-Jun-2023
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  • (2023)The Invisible Labor of Authoring Dialogue for Teleoperated Socially Assistive Robots2023 32nd IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN)10.1109/RO-MAN57019.2023.10309399(2462-2469)Online publication date: 28-Aug-2023
  • (2022)Supporting Shy & Neurodivergent Children in Social PlayExtended Abstracts of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3491101.3503800(1-6)Online publication date: 27-Apr-2022
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