A Virtual Conversational Agent for Teens with Autism: Experimental Results and Design Lessons

We present the design of an online social skills development interface for teenagers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The interface is intended to enable private conversation practice anywhere, anytime using a web-browser. Users converse informally with a virtual agent, receiving feedback on nonverbal cues in real-time, and summary feedback. The prototype was developed in consultation with an expert UX designer, two psychologists, and a pediatrician. Using the data from 47 individuals, feedback and dialogue generation were automated using a hidden Markov model and a schema-driven dialogue manager capable of handling multi-topic conversations. We conducted a study with nine high-functioning ASD teenagers. Through a thematic analysis of post-experiment interviews, identified several key design considerations, notably: 1) Users should be fully briefed at the outset about the purpose and limitations of the system, to avoid unrealistic expectations. 2) An interface should incorporate positive acknowledgment of behavior change. 3) Realistic appearance of a virtual agent and responsiveness are important in engaging users. 4) Conversation personalization, for instance in prompting laconic users for more input and reciprocal questions, would help the teenagers engage for longer terms and increase the system's utility

CreaTable Content and Tangible Interaction in Aphasia

Multimedia digital content (combining pictures, text and music) is ubiquitous. The process of creating such content using existing tools typically requires complex, language-laden interactions which pose a challenge for users with aphasia (a language impairment following brain injury). Tangible interactions offer a potential means to address this challenge, however, there has been little work exploring their potential for this purpose. In this paper, we present CreaTable – a platform that enables us to explore tangible interaction as a means of supporting digital content creation for people with aphasia. We report details of the co-design of CreaTable and findings from a digital creativity workshop. Workshop findings indicated that CreaTable enabled people with aphasia to create something they would not otherwise have been able to. We report how users’ aphasia profiles affected their experience, describe tensions in collaborative content creation and provide insight into more accessible content creation using tangibles

The role of telehealth technology in the remediation of pediatric feeding disorders

Teletherapy, the use of video conferencing technology to deliver therapy services, has the potential to provide ongoing services to children that might not otherwise be able to receive traditional intervention that it essential for them to thrive. Among children who are diagnosed with developmental disorders, as well as those who are typically developing, feeding related concerns are highly prevalent. The current report discusses the nature of feeding disorders in children across the continuum of development and diagnoses, synthesizes the current literature of feeding and non-feeding related intervention programs for children in various settings, and discusses their value for future clinical use and research.Communication Sciences and Disorder

Human-centred design methods : developing scenarios for robot assisted play informed by user panels and field trials

Original article can be found at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/ Copyright ElsevierThis article describes the user-centred development of play scenarios for robot assisted play, as part of the multidisciplinary IROMEC1 project that develops a novel robotic toy for children with special needs. The project investigates how robotic toys can become social mediators, encouraging children with special needs to discover a range of play styles, from solitary to collaborative play (with peers, carers/teachers, parents, etc.). This article explains the developmental process of constructing relevant play scenarios for children with different special needs. Results are presented from consultation with panel of experts (therapists, teachers, parents) who advised on the play needs for the various target user groups and who helped investigate how robotic toys could be used as a play tool to assist in the children’s development. Examples from experimental investigations are provided which have informed the development of scenarios throughout the design process. We conclude by pointing out the potential benefit of this work to a variety of research projects and applications involving human–robot interactions.Peer reviewe

Technology in Practice (Section 2.31 of the Comprehensive Clinical Psychology: Vol. 2. Professional Issues)

The contemporary practice of psychology requires a prudent balance of traditional and emerging communication methods. Interpersonal interactions in the context of human relationship (e.g., speech, emotional expressions, and nonverbal gestures) have been a vital part of emotional healing throughout many centuries, and research findings in the 1990s underscore the importance of relational factors in effective psychological interventions (Whiston & Sexton, 1993). In addition to the time honored interpersonal communication methods of professional psychology, rapid technological advances have propelled psychologists into another sphere of communication. Today\u27s professional psychologist is increasingly expected to attain mastery in both of these communication methods-the very old and the very new

Brittany Bernal - Sensorimotor Adaptation of Speech Through a Virtually Shortened Vocal Tract

The broad objective of this line of research is to understand how auditory feedback manipulations may be used to elicit involuntary changes in speech articulation. We examine speech sensorimotor adaptation to supplement the development of speech rehabilitation applications that benefit from this learning phenomenon. By manipulating the acoustics of one’s auditory feedback, it is possible to elicit involuntary changes in speech articulation. We seek to understand how virtually manipulating participants’ perception of vowel space affects their speech movements by assessing acoustic variables such as formant frequency changes. Participants speak through a digital audio processing device that virtually alters the perceived size of their vocal tract. It is hypothesized that this modification to auditory feedback will facilitate adaptive changes in motor behavior as indicated by acoustic changes resulting from speech articulation. This study will determine how modifying the perception of vocal tract size affects articulatory behavior, indicated by changes in formant frequencies and changes in vowel space area. This work will also determine if and how the size of the virtual vowel space affects the magnitude and direction of sensorimotor adaptation for speech. The ultimate aim is to determine how important it is for the virtual vowel space to mimic the talker’s real vowel space, and whether or not perturbing the size of the perceived vowel space may facilitate or impede involuntary adaptive learning for speech. Sensorimotor Adaptation of Speech Through a Virtually Shortened Vocal Tract by Brittany Bernal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.https://epublications.marquette.edu/mcnair_2014/1009/thumbnail.jp

Robots as embodied beings- Interactionally sensitive body movements in interactions among autistic children and a robot

Peer reviewe