Abstract
The use of non-industrial robots, called service robots, is increasing in the welfare fields to meet the demand for robot therapy among individuals with autism. The more simple communication structures and repetitive behaviors of robots, compared to humans, make it easier for children with autism to interpret communication and respond appropriately. Interacting with a robot allows for social distance to be designed and maintained depending on a person’s social interaction needs. To simulate natural social interactions, robots need to perform social distance in some way. In the context of interacting with autistic children, understanding their social response levels is crucial for the robot to implement decisions regarding the distance kept during the interaction. In this study, an experiment was conducted to examine the accuracy of a detection program and explore the correlations between the social responsiveness of children and social distance, wherein 15 autistic children interacted with a robot on a one-to-one basis for about 20 min. The results revealed that both programs implemented in the robot-assisted autism therapy were effective in detecting social distance in a natural HRI situation.
Highlights
We focus on social distance as an evaluation measure of robot therapy
This study aims to explore the tendencies of social distance when autistic children interact with robots and to verify the accuracy of a skin-color-detection program by automatically detecting the social distance in the interaction
It is clear that the severity of autism symptoms did not affect the social distance between the children and the robot during interacting with the robot
Summary
The results revealed that both programs implemented in the robot-assisted autism therapy were effective in detecting social distance in a natural HRI situation. There has been increasing attention on non-industrial robots called “service robots” in the welfare and humanities fields. This technology differs from industrial robots that perform assembly and other tasks in factories to replace human labor. The social demand for effective programs to support the development of children with autism is extremely high. To address this problem, robot therapy is used for children with autism [4,9].
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