Comparing Effect of Active vs. Passive Robotic Interaction on Joint Attention of Children with ASD

Abstract

Recent research shows that robotic therapies are effective for improving core autism impairments. This paper focuses on analyzing the effect of active versus passive robotic interaction on joint attention of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). In both types of interaction, robot records data related to joint attention (JA) of children, however, the action taken is different for both the interactions. In active interaction, robot’s interaction is coupled with JA whereas in passive interaction there is no coupling of JA. The experiment was conducted on 12 ASD children including 10 males and 2 females. Each child was introduced to 16 interactions per trial. Each trial comprised of 8 pairs of active and passive interactions each. The frequency of trials was once per week. Results show that children focus more in active robotic interactions with an average accuracy of 68% whereas for the passive interactions the average accuracy is 61%. The results show the significance of active interaction in robotic interventions for ASD children.