Abstract
Social robots have been shown to be promising tools for delivering therapeutic tasks for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). However, their efficacy is currently limited by a lack of flexibility of the robot’s social behavior to successfully meet therapeutic and interaction goals. Robot-assisted interventions are often based on structured tasks where the robot sequentially guides the child towards the task goal. Motivated by a need for personalization to accommodate a diverse set of children profiles, this paper investigates the effect of different robot action sequences in structured socially interactive tasks targeting attention skills in children with different ASD profiles. Based on an autism diagnostic tool, we devised a robotic prompting scheme on a NAO humanoid robot, aimed at eliciting goal behaviors from the child, and integrated it in a novel interactive storytelling scenario involving screens. We programmed the robot to operate in three different modes: diagnostic-inspired (Assess), personalized therapy-inspired (Therapy), and random (Explore). Our exploratory study with 11 young children with ASD highlights the usefulness and limitations of each mode according to different possible interaction goals, and paves the way towards more complex methods for balancing short-term and long-term goals in personalized robot-assisted therapy.
Highlights
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a set of developmental conditions that affect an individual’s social abilities, verbal and non-verbal communication, and potentially motor and cognitive skills (APA 2013)
This paper considers a robot-assisted autism therapy scenario targeting attention skills, a major area of impairment for young children with ASD (APA 2013)
We report on an exploratory study whereby a NAO humanoid robot engages with 11 children with different ASD severities in a storytelling scenario
Summary
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a set of developmental conditions that affect an individual’s social abilities, verbal and non-verbal communication, and potentially motor and cognitive skills (APA 2013). Assistive (humanoid) robots offer a number of characteristics that make them attractive tools for use in ASD therapy. They are predictable, which can help reduce the anxiety that some children may experience when navigating the uncertainty of a social interaction; they are engaging, which can allow for richer and more sustained interactions during therapy; and they are simplified social models of humans, which allows children to explore a more basic version of social interactions before applying their learned skills to interactions with people. This paper considers a robot-assisted autism therapy scenario targeting attention skills, a major area of impairment for young children with ASD (APA 2013). These attention skills include the ability to direct one’s attention from one object to another when prompted, and constitute a crucial
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