Impact of the application of the Bee-Bot robot on the non-verbal communication skills of students with autism spectrum disorder

Assessing Diverse Students With Autism Spectrum Disorders

The central impairments of people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affect social interaction and communication. Music therapy uses musical experiences and the relationships that develop through them to enable communication and expression, thus attempting to address some of the core problems of people with ASD. The present version of this review on music therapy for ASD is an update of the original Cochrane review published in 2006. To assess the effects of music therapy for individuals with ASD. We searched the following databases in July 2013: CENTRAL, Ovid MEDLINE, EMBASE, LILACS, PsycINFO, CINAHL, ERIC, ASSIA, Sociological Abstracts, and Dissertation Abstracts International. We also checked the reference lists of relevant studies and contacted investigators in person. All randomised controlled trials (RCTs) or controlled clinical trials comparing music therapy or music therapy added to standard care to 'placebo' therapy, no treatment, or standard care for individuals with ASD were considered for inclusion. Two authors independently selected studies, assessed risk of bias, and extracted data from all included studies. We calculated the pooled standardised mean difference (SMD) and corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI) for continuous outcomes to allow the combination data from different scales and to facilitate the interpretation of effect sizes. Heterogeneity was assessed using the I² statistic. In cases of statistical heterogeneity within outcome subgroups, we examined clients' age, intensity of therapy (number and frequency of therapy sessions), and treatment approach as possible sources of heterogeneity. We included 10 studies (165 participants) that examined the short- and medium-term effect of music therapy interventions (one week to seven months) for children with ASD. Music was superior to 'placebo' therapy or standard care with respect to the primary outcomes social interaction within the therapy context (SMD 1.06, 95% CI 0.02 to 2.10, 1 RCT, n = 10); generalised social interaction outside of the therapy context (SMD 0.71, 95% CI 0.18 to 1.25, 3 RCTs, n = 57, moderate quality evidence), non-verbal communicative skills within the therapy context (SMD 0.57, 95% CI 0.29 to 0.85, 3 RCTs, n = 30), verbal communicative skills (SMD 0.33, 95% CI 0.16 to 0.49, 6 RCTs, n = 139), initiating behaviour (SMD 0.73, 95% CI 0.36 to 1.11, 3 RCTs, n = 22, moderate quality evidence), and social-emotional reciprocity (SMD 2.28, 95% CI 0.73 to 3.83, 1 RCT, n = 10, low quality evidence). There was no statistically significant difference in non-verbal communicative skills outside of the therapy context (SMD 0.48, 95% CI -0.02 to 0.98, 3 RCTs, n = 57, low quality evidence). Music therapy was also superior to 'placebo' therapy or standard care in secondary outcome areas, including social adaptation (SMD 0.41, 95% CI 0.21 to 0.60, 4 RCTs, n = 26), joy (SMD 0.96, 95% CI 0.04 to 1.88, 1 RCT, n = 10), and quality of parent-child relationships (SMD 0.82, 95% CI 0.13 to 1.52, 2 RCTs, n = 33, moderate quality evidence). None of the included studies reported any adverse effects. The small sample sizes of the studies limit the methodological strength of these findings. The findings of this updated review provide evidence that music therapy may help children with ASD to improve their skills in primary outcome areas that constitute the core of the condition including social interaction, verbal communication, initiating behaviour, and social-emotional reciprocity. Music therapy may also help to enhance non-verbal communication skills within the therapy context. Furthermore, in secondary outcome areas, music therapy may contribute to increasing social adaptation skills in children with ASD and to promoting the quality of parent-child relationships. In contrast to the studies included in an earlier version of this review published in 2006, the new studies included in this update enhanced the applicability of findings to clinical practice. More research using larger samples and generalised outcome measures is needed to corroborate these findings and to examine whether the effects of music therapy are enduring. When applying the results of this review to practice, it is important to note that the application of music therapy requires specialised academic and clinical training.

Introduction: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by difficulties with language, cognition, and social interaction. The diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorder, fifth edition used “spectrum” to show the variability in etiology and phenotypic levels. This study aims to compare nonverbal communication skills in normally developing and autistic children in Karbala City, Iraq.
 Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study. Two sets of children (ASD and normal) were matched in terms of age and socioeconomic state. A total of 50 individuals were recruited with 25 ASD and 25 normally developing children without any history of psychological abnormalities. The child’s parent/caregiver provided all the demographic information and medical history. The information was gathered from 10-min videos separately recorded for each child, regular contact with them, and continuous interviews with their parents and caregivers. The researchers developed a pre-designed data collection questionnaire according to the non-verbal skills of 3-5-year-olds, including body language, eye contact, and facial expressions. The questionnaire was filled out by the first author. Finally, the gathered data were analyzed by the SPSS software, version 25 (IBM Corp, Armonk, NY).
 Results: Comparing the total scores revealed a significant difference between the ASD and normal group in gestures (P≤0.001), phonetics (P≤0.001), body language (P≤0.001), and artifacts (P≤0.001). Normally developed children scored significantly higher than ASD children in all 4 variables. However, in the maladaptive behavior (P≤0.001), the significant scores were for ASD children compared to normal children.
 Conclusion: The results showed that ASD children experience difficulty in nonverbal communication skills. They also have maladaptive behaviors. The main reason for this behavior is their inability to communicate non-verbally.

Special Report: Autism Spectrum Disorder and Inflexible Thinking—Affecting Patients Across the Lifespan

Video Podcast: https://youtu.be/zO11bwRk4Cg

Otizm spektrum bozukluğu olan çocuklar, sözel olmayan iletişim becerilerinde ve dil gelişiminde sınırlılıklar yaşamaktadır. Dil ve iletişim becerilerinde yaşanan bozukluklar otizm spektrum bozukluğunun tanı ölçütlerinden biridir. Birçok çalışma, sözel olmayan iletişim becerilerinin, alıcı ve ifade edici dil gelişimi ile ilişkili olduğunu göstermektedir. Bu araştırmada taklit oyun ve jestleri ile OSB olan çocukların alıcı ifade edici sözcük dağarcığı arasındaki ilişkiler incelenmiştir. Araştırmanın çalışma grubu, 3-6 yaş arası 7 kız, 29 erkek toplam 36 OSB tanılı çocuktan oluşmaktadır. Araştırmanın sonucunda taklit, jest ve oyun becerilerinin hem alıcı hem de ifade edici sözcük dağarcığı ile ilişkili olduğu bulunmuştur. Bununla birlikte sadece jest kullanımının alıcı ve ifade edici sözcük dağarcığını anlamlı olarak yordadığı bulunmuştur. Araştırmanın bulgularına göre, OSB olan çocuklarda jest kullanımlarının, çocukların sözcük dağarcığı gelişiminde önemli bir rolü olabileceği düşünülmektedir.

As a growing population with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) leaves the K-12 educational system and enters the workforce and college settings, long-term outcomes inform the need for further development of social skills interventions promoting success in these new contexts. Drawing from neuroscience literature describing neuropathology of ASD over the lifespan, physiologic deficits have been documented which impact nonverbal pragmatics, informing development of new treatments for those on the spectrum representing high-functioning autism. Nonverbal language skills warrants focused intervention to promote greater success in the workplace and college, and are directly influenced by the visual pathway, known to be atypical within ASD. Parent perspective offers insight about deficiencies in nonverbal skills which persist into early adulthood, in line with brain imaging data indicating a decline in adaptive skills and socialization. Evidence-based practices (EBP) for treating adolescents with ASD by targeting visual attention and pragmatics are presented. New insights are offered about how to integrate knowledge of brain function within targeted language therapy approaches emphasizing visual teaching. Empirical evidence is provided guiding future clinical research supporting the need for continued language intervention into late adolescence and early adulthood.

Objectives: This paper investigates the associations of social competence with cognitive representation and communication skills in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), by measuring these skills in an expansive way through assessing both mental and internal-state understanding, and verbal and non-verbal communication.Methods: The data were collected from 45 Turkish children (Mage=8.52 years, SD=3.05, min-max=3–14) with a diagnosis of ASD. Individual assessments were used to measure mental- and internal-state understanding. Teacher-rated scales were used to assess child’s verbal and non-verbal communication skills, and social competence.Results: The results showed that social competence, cognitive representation, verbal and non-verbal communication skills were all significantly associated, but over and above cognitive representation skills and verbal communication, non-verbal communication had a salient role in adaptive social relationships of children with ASD.Conclusions: These findings have important applied implications for intervention studies and suggest that improvements of non-verbal communication skills in children with ASD might be important for increasing their positive social relations.

The current research aimed to design simple application software based on augmented reality (AR) technology, which may contribute to the development of some of the non-verbal communication skills in a sample of 20 children with an autism spectrum disorder, aged between 5 and six years in the state of Qatar. The study used a questionnaire to measure the current non-verbal social skills designed by researchers, in addition to developing some AR applications on tablets. The study followed a quasi-experimental approach based on one experimental group with a pre-and-post design. Some non-parametric statistical methods were used. The proposed application is expected to help children with autism spectrum develop skills to recognize basic human emotions such as happiness, surprise, sadness, anger, fear, and pain. Also, the application helps develop some adaptive behaviors in some hazardous situatuations such as drowning and electricity. Keywords: Autism spectrum disorder, augmented virtual reality; non-verbal communication skills; preschool children

Background: Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who are nonverbal lack communication skills. These children with ASD are unable to express their needs verbally even if they want to. The introduction of indigenous augmentative and alternative communication system (AAC) can be helpful in improving the social interaction. By using AAC, these children with ASD can easily communicate their needs with parents, teachers, or caregivers. Objective: The objective of this study is to evaluate the importance and need of AVAZ application in special school-going children with ASD. Study Design: A pilot study for short term on small sample was conducted. Methods: A sample of eight special school-going children with ASD was selected. Each child had downloaded AVAZ application trial version on their smartphone from the Google Play Store. The number of sentences formed by the children over a period of 21 days was analyzed. The responses were recorded in the AVAZ application. Results: Percentage improvement was noted in forming relevant sentences through the application of each child from the 1st to 21st session ranging from 28.5% to 40%; five children showed the improvement but three children did not form any sentence neither relevant nor nonrelevant. Conclusion: Our study showed that the use of AVAZ application can be helpful in improving social interaction and can be utilized as a supporting tool for functional communication with others and for the better learning process in children with ASD.

Job interviews are significant barriers for individuals with autism spectrum disorder because these individuals lack good nonverbal communication skills. We developed a job interview training program using an android robot. The job interview training program using an android robot consists the following three stages: (1) tele-operating an android robot and conversing with others through the android robot, (2) a face-to-face mock job interview with the android robot, and (3) feedback based on the mock job interview and nonverbal communication exercises using the android robot. The participants were randomly assigned to the following two groups: one group received a combined intervention with "interview guidance by teachers and job interview training program using an android robot" (n = 13), and the other group received an intervention with interview guidance by teachers alone (n = 16). Before and after the intervention, the participants in both groups underwent a mock job interview with a human interviewer, who provided outcome measurements of nonverbal communication, self-confidence, and salivary cortisol. After the training sessions, the participants who received the combined interview guidance by teachers and the job interview training program using an android robot intervention displayed improved nonverbal communication skills and self-confidence and had significantly lower levels of salivary cortisol than the participants who only received interview guidance by teachers. The job interview training program using an android robot improved various measures of job interview skills in individuals with autism spectrum disorder.

Early Generalized Overgrowth in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Prevalence Rates, Gender Effects, and Clinical Outcomes

“A developmental disability that hinders the normal functioning of the brain, affecting, in varying degrees, communication skills and social interaction. Repetitive behaviours, and different ways of learning, paying attention, or reacting to things are often distinctive signs”. This standard definition of autism fails to describe the complexity of a condition that ranges in its manifestations from severe intellectual impairment to superior cognitive skills, like in the Asperger syndrome. To comprise such diversity, autism disorders are now covered under the umbrella term “autism spectrum disorder” (ASD). In most cases, ASD manifests during the first 5 years of life, with boys significantly more likely to be diagnosed than girls. ASD usually goes together with several other problems that frequently include anxiety, sleep disorders, or epilepsy. No cure exists; treatment, such as speech therapy, just attempts to alleviate specific deficits of autistic patients. > Nothing is simple in autism. Even the real number of people affected is uncertain. Nothing is simple in autism. Even the real number of people affected is uncertain. The US CDC estimates that about 1 in 68 (or 1.5%) of children in the USA are living with ASD (http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html). The WHO has a more conservative estimate, last revised in January this year, of 1 in 160 children, based on a larger set of epidemiological surveys (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/autism-spectrum-disorders/en/). Needless to say, most studies were conducted in developed countries, and the prevalence of ASD in many low‐ and middle‐income countries remains largely unknown. > Along the years, many potential causes have been indicated, including genetic and environmental factors, exposure to toxins during pregnancy, wide gaps between parent ages, and so on Although the general consensus is that prevalence rates are increasing globally, this point is debated too. Some analyses indicate that a large percentage of the increase in ASD owes to improved awareness and …

Introduction Expressing emotions through spontaneous facial expression is an important nonverbal social communication skill. In our study, we aimed to demonstrate that both children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and the non-ASD siblings of children with ASD have deficits in this skill. Method In this study, we analyzed the six core facial emotion expressions of three distinct groups of children – those diagnosed with ASD (n = 60), non-ASD siblings (n = 60), and typically developed children (n = 60). To analyze facial expressions, we employed a computer vision program that uses machine learning algorithms to detect facial features and conducted an evidence-based task that involved assessing participants’ ability to recognize facial emotion expressions. Results Deficits in spontaneous emotion expression were shown in the children with ASD and in non-ASD siblings when compared with typically developed children. Interestingly, it was determined that these deficits were not related to the severity of the autism symptoms in the ASD group. Conclusions The results of the study suggest that computer-based automated analysis of facial expressions with contextual social scenes task holds potential for measuring limitations in the ability to express emotions, and they supplement the traditional clinical assessment of social phenotypical behavior deficits. This applies both to children with ASD and especially, to the non-ASD siblings of children with ASD. This study adds a novel approach to previous literature examining the emotion expression skills.

Introduction: Children with autism spectrum disorder have deficiencies in verbal or nonverbal communication skills. It seems that executive functions training using augmented reality can improve the communication skills of children with autism spectrum disorder. Aim: The aim of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of an executive functions training program using augmented reality on communication skills in children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder. Method: The present study was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test-post-test design and a control group with a one-month follow-up period. The statistical population of the study included all children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder in Tehran in 2023-2024, from which 30 people were selected through purposive sampling and randomly assigned to two experimental (15 people) and control (15 people) groups. Participants answered the Gilliam Autism Diagnostic Scale - Second Edition (1995) for pre-test and post-test. After 21 45-minute sessions of executive functions training using augmented reality for children in the experimental group, the statistical method of analysis of variance with repeated measures and SPSS24 software were used to analyze the data. Results:The findings showed that the executive functions training program using augmented reality had a significant effect on the control group in the two stages of post-test and follow-up (p<0.001). Conclusion: Executive functions training using augmented reality is effective on the communication skills of children with autism spectrum disorder and this training is recommended for children with autism spectrum disorder.