Attentional Behavior of Children With ASD in Response to Robotic Agents

Faisal Mehmood,Hiroshi Ishiguro,Yuichiro Yoshikawa,Sara Ali,Yasar Ayaz,Haleema Sadia,Hamed Mahzoon

doi:10.1109/access.2021.3056211

Faisal Mehmood, Hiroshi Ishiguro + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1109/access.2021.3056211

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Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affects a variety of social skills in children. One of the most important social skills that are affected by ASD is the ability to pay attention; ASD introduces unnecessary temporal delays in the attentional behavior of children toward external stimuli. This research focuses on identifying the effect of different social stimuli from robotic agents to assess the attentional behavior of children with ASD. Latencies in shifting attention and the number of attentions paid to a stimulus are defined as indexes of attentional behaviors for children with ASD. Nine children with ASD (seven males and two females, mean: 7.57 ± 2.57 years) that had minimal to no symptoms of autism participated in this study. Two robotic agents presented visual, speech, and motion social stimuli to the participants. Regarding social stimuli, a significant effect on the latency in shifting attention (χ <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> (2) = 9.55, p = 0.008) and the number of attentions paid (χ <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> (2) = 9.56, p = 0.008) was observed in children with ASD. The speech stimulus captured the children's attention faster than the visual and motion stimuli in terms of latency in shifting attention and the number of attentions paid. Moreover, significant positive correlations were found for some pairs of stimuli among visual, speech, and motion stimuli for latencies in shifting attention, as well as the number of attentions paid using Pearson's correlation analysis. This study contributes to the literature in terms of the impact of robotic stimuli on the attentional behavior of children with ASD.

Highlights

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects the social skills of children in different ways and to different extents [1]
In order to answer above basic questions, it is necessary to see the following aspects in children with ASD: 1) How does the latency in shifting attention vary toward different types of social stimuli, where latency refers to the time difference between the presented stimulus and the attentive behavior of the participant with ASD toward the given stimulus? 2) How does the number of attentions paid vary with respect to different social stimuli? 3) Is there any correlation between the latencies in shifting attention and the number of attentions paid toward different social stimuli? In this research, we focus on identifying the effect of different social stimuli provided by robotic agents on the attentional behavior of children with ASD
In the current study, we examined the effect of the social stimuli type from robotic agents by assessing the amount of latency in shifting attention and the number of attentions paid by children with ASD

Summary

Introduction

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects the social skills of children in different ways and to different extents [1]. A variety of metrics for attention and communication can be used for the early detection of ASD in toddlers and infants. These metrics include the responses of infants toward positioning, waving, eye contact, imitation, social smiles, and calling out their name [5]. Prompt or stimulus is provided, the infant siblings of children with ASD pay less attention to caregiver (human) as compared to objects (toys). This type of attentional response can be a marker to diagnose autism in the infant siblings of children with ASD. Different markers for the assessment of attentional responses in children with ASD are included in reliable ASD screening scales/tools e.g., Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS), Childhood Autism Rating Score (CARS), and the Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL) [7], [8]

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