AUTISTHERAPIBOT: A New Robotic Approach for Autistic Children

Recent studies unravels that there are a lot of negative implications happen in those children who suffers from Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) which include Asperger and Kanner Syndrome. All these syndromes shares similar characteristics which are difficulties in socialization, communications and repetitive inflexible behaviors. This problem leads to difficulties in learning especially to those children suffering from autistic disorder. Thus, the objective of this project is to investigate the current teaching method used by the autism therapists in Perak at the selected special school and is to develop an autonomous robotic system to aid the teaching and learning process of autistic children in Malaysia. The LEGO Mindstorm NXT is used as an alternative approach in educating those children with ASD namely those in the Asperger range since Asperger is more common compared to Kanner. The prototype, is tested on a group of autistic kids from selected public and private autism institution. The project focuses on how to attract the autistic children and sustain their learning via the usage of robotic application such as the LEGO Mindstorm NXT. In a preliminary investigation, multiple robotic designs and programming approach are experimented to produce a robotic application that can engage with the target autistic children in order to facilitate their process of learning via the intervention of their therapists. Interviews with the therapists and live observation at the selected special school are conducted to understand the traditional learning process that are used by the therapists and identify the weaknesses in it to improvise it. The results from the investigation and tests shows that this robotic systems helps a lot in assisting the therapist in educating autistic children and scores way better if compared to the current methods they are using. The significance of this robotic application is to fulfill the depravedness in the learning capabilities of the autistic children and also to assist the therapists in their daily routine

SOCIABOTS: A Robotic Approach for Special Education Children to Improve their Social Skills

Social behavior for special-needs children is crucial to ensure that the special-needs children know how to communicate and establish social relationship with others. Children with special-needs such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), Down syndrome and Slow Learner usually have problems in socializing as they usually have empathy deficit. The current pedagogy used by teachers also are unattractive making them unable to attract the children’s attention and making them unable to stimulate the children’s kinetic senses and tactile senses thus affecting the learning rates of the special-needs children. Therefore, to address this issues, SOCIABOTS, a NAO robotic approach for the special education children to improve their social skills is developed as to aid teachers in their teaching process. This robotic application is able to play shapes game with the special-needs children and dance after they accomplish the task correctly. It is a perfect solution for both of the specialneeds children and the special education teachers as it caters both needs. This robotic module focuses on making learning turn taking attractive to sustain the special-needs children’ attention while stimulating their tactile and kinetic senses. The RAD methodology is used for development of this robotic module. Surveys, interviews and observations are the source of data to gather information and opinion for the development of SOCIABOTS. A shape recognition test is conducted to determine which background color works better in recognizing shapes. A field test at the Sekolah Kebangsaan Sultan Yussuf, Batu Gajah, Perak with 5 special education students was conducted to compare the effectiveness of SOCIABOTS against the current pedagogy used by teachers. The results show that SOCIABOTS helps in sustaining the specialneeds children’ attention and helps in assisting the teachers in teaching. It scores better compared to the current pedagogy that the teachers used in classes. This module is focusing on assisting teachers in their teaching process and helps special-needs children learning taking turns interactively thus improving their social skills

An approach to promote social and communication behaviors in children with autism spectrum disorders : robot based intervention

Most autistic people present some difficulties in developing social behavior, living in their own world. This study has the goal to improve the social life of children with autism with a main focus in promoting their social interaction and communication. It is necessary to call for children’s attention and enforce their collaboration, where a robot, LEGO MindStorm, behaves as a mediator/promoter of this interaction. A set of experiments designed to share objects and fulfill simple orders, by the 11 years old autistic child at the time of daily routine work and in-game with the robot, are described. The generalization of the acquired skills by the child in new contexts and environments are also tested. Results are described showing the outcomes of the experiments.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - R&D projecto RIPD/ADA/109407/200

Constraints in the design of activities focusing on emotion recognition for children with ASD using robotic tools

Robótica-Autismo project, presented in this paper, aims to identify the main aspects to be considered when working with robots and children with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders). Several constraints are identified such as the type of robot, the type of skills that should be developed, the criteria of inclusion and exclusion in the target group, which proceedings should be followed during the sessions and how to analyze the obtained results. In the end, a well-established methodology is achieved in order to accomplish the goal of using a robot as a mediator between children with ASD and other human partners.The authors are grateful to the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, FCT - Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia, for funding through the R& D project reference RIPD/ADAlI09407/2009 and the scholarship SFRHIBD/71600/2010. This work is also supported by a QREN initiative, from UEIFEDER ( Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional) funds through the "Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade - COMPETE"

Automatic Emotion Recognition in Children with Autism: A Systematic Literature Review

© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).The automatic emotion recognition domain brings new methods and technologies that might be used to enhance therapy of children with autism. The paper aims at the exploration of methods and tools used to recognize emotions in children. It presents a literature review study that was performed using a systematic approach and PRISMA methodology for reporting quantitative and qualitative results. Diverse observation channels and modalities are used in the analyzed studies, including facial expressions, prosody of speech, and physiological signals. Regarding representation models, the basic emotions are the most frequently recognized, especially happiness, fear, and sadness. Both single-channel and multichannel approaches are applied, with a preference for the first one. For multimodal recognition, early fusion was the most frequently applied. SVM and neural networks were the most popular for building classifiers. Qualitative analysis revealed important clues on participant group construction and the most common combinations of modalities and methods. All channels are reported to be prone to some disturbance, and as a result, information on a specific symptoms of emotions might be temporarily or permanently unavailable. The challenges of proper stimuli, labelling methods, and the creation of open datasets were also identified.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

A scoping review on the relationship between robotics in educational contexts and e-health

In recent years, due to technological advancement, research has been directed to the development and analysis of resources and tools related to educational robotics with particular attention to the field of special needs and training actions aimed at learners, teachers, professionals, and families. The use of robotics in all levels of education can support the development of logical and computational thinking, interaction, communication, and socialization, and the acquisition of particularly complex work practices, for example, in the medical field. The adoption of successful educational robotics training practices can be a potential tool to support rehabilitation interventions for disabilities and comprehensive training for students or future professionals in healthcare. A scoping review was conducted on the main topics “education” AND “robotics” with three specific focuses on complementary themes in educational research about ER: (1) teaching and computational thinking, (2) training in the health sector, and (3) education and special needs. The authors systematically searched two online databases, Scopus and Web of Science, up to April 2022. A total of 164 articles were evaluated, and 59 articles were analyzed, in a particular way N = 33 related to computational thinking, N = 15 related to e-health, and N = 11 related to special needs. The following four questions guided our research: (1) What are the educational and experimental experiences conducted through robotics in transdisciplinary fields? (2) What tools and resources are most used in such experiments (educational robotics kit, humanoid robots, telepresence robots etc.)? (3) What are the constitutive elements of the experiments and studies involving robotics and health in educational contexts? and (4) What are those explicitly related to students with special needs? In this study, part of the research project “Robotics and E-health: new Challenges for Education” (RECE) activated at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. RECE aims to investigate the training, educational, cognitive, and legal processes induced by the increasing diffusion of educational robotics and telemedicine in clinical and surgical contexts

Social Robots to enhance therapy and interaction for children: From the design to the implementation "in the wild"

En les últimes dues dècades els robots socials s'han convertit en un camp emergent en el qual encara hi ha molt per fer. Aquest camp requereix coneixements en mecànica, control, intel·ligència artificial, sistemes, etc., però també en psicologia, disseny, ètica, etc. El nostre grup de recerca de perfil interdisciplinari ha estat treballant en el disseny de robots socials en diferents aplicacions per a nens amb necessitats especials. L'objectiu d'aquesta tesi és investigar diferents escenaris en teràpia o educació on els robots socials podrien ser una eina útil per als nens. Es van realitzar 4 estudis amb diferents propòsits: (1) dissenyar activitats amb robòtica de LEGO per avaluar el comportament social dels nens amb trastorn de l'espectre autista (TEA) (entre companys i amb adults) i analitzar la seva efectivitat, (2) dissenyar un robot social per recuperar les funcionalitats més afectades a causa de traumatismes cranioencefàlics (TCE) en nens i veure l'eficàcia del tractament, (3) proporcionar un robot mascota per alleujar els sentiments d'ansietat, solitud i estrès en nens hospitalitzats, i (4) comprovar com un robot amb comportament social i amb una personalització versus robots sense aquestes característiques mostra diferències en termes d'interacció amb nens i, per tant, pot ajudar en l'efectivitat de diferents tractaments com hem esmentat anteriorment. Els resultats van revelar diferents resultats depenent de l'aplicació: (1) efectivitat amb la plataforma robòtica social que vam dissenyar en el tractament neuropsicològic per a aquells nens afectats per TCE, (2) eficàcia amb les activitats de robòtica de LEGO dissenyades per un grup de terapeutes en termes de millora d'habilitats socials (3) un efecte positiu entre els mediadors i facilitadors de la interacció i les relacions entre els diferents agents involucrats en el procés de la cura: pacients hospitalitzats, familiars, voluntaris i personal clínic, i (4) una interacció diferent, en termes de temps, entre els dos grups durant període de dues setmanes.En las últimas dos décadas los robots sociales se han convertido en un campo emergente en el que todavía hay mucho por hacer. Este campo requiere conocimientos en mecánica, control, inteligencia artificial, sistemas, etc., pero también en psicología, diseño, ética, etc. Nuestro grupo de investigación de perfil interdisciplinar ha estado trabajando en el diseño de robots sociales en diferentes aplicaciones para niños con necesidades especiales. El objetivo de esta tesis es investigar diferentes escenarios en terapia o educación donde los robots sociales podrían ser una herramienta útil para los niños. Se realizaron 4 estudios con diferentes propósitos: (1) diseñar actividades con robótica de LEGO para evaluar el comportamiento social de los niños con trastorno del espectro autista (TEA) (entre compañeros y con adultos) y analizar su efectividad, (2) diseñar un robot social para recuperar las funcionalidades más afectadas a causa de traumatismos craneoencefálicos (TCE) en niños y ver la eficacia del tratamiento, (3) proporcionar un robot mascota para aliviar los sentimientos de ansiedad, soledad y estrés en niños hospitalizados, y (4) comprobar como un robot con comportamiento social y con una personalización versus robots sin esas características muestra diferencias en términos de interacción con niños y, por tanto, puede ayudar en la efectividad de diferentes tratamientos como mencionamos anteriormente. Los resultados revelaron diferentes resultados dependiendo de la aplicación: (1) efectividad con la plataforma robótica social que diseñamos en el tratamiento neuropsicológico para aquellos niños afectadas por TCE, (2) eficacia con las actividades de robótica de LEGO diseñadas por un grupo de terapeutas en términos de mejora de habilidades sociales (3) un efecto positivo entre los mediadores y facilitadores de la interacción y las relaciones entre los diferentes agentes involucrados en el proceso del cuidado: pacientes hospitalizados, familiares, voluntarios y personal clínico, y (4) una interacción diferente, en términos de tiempo, entre ambos grupos en el promedio de un período de dos semanas.Over the past two decades social robots have become an emerging field where there are many things still to work on. This field not only requires knowledge in mechanics, control, artificial intelligence, systems, etc., but also in psychology, design, ethics, etc. Our multidisciplinary research group has been working on designing social robotic platforms in different applications for children with special needs. The aim of this thesis is to investigate different scenarios in therapy or education where social robots could be a useful tool for children. We ran 4 studies with different purposes: (1) to design activities with LEGO robotics to assess children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) social behaviour (between peers and with adults) and to analyze the effectiveness, (2) to design a social robotic platform to recover the functionalities most affected by traumatic brain injuries (TBI) in children and see the effectiveness of the treatment, (3) to provide a pet robot to alleviate feelings of anxiety, loneliness and stress of long-term children inpatient and their bystanders, and (4) to verify how a robot with social behaviour and personalization verses those robots without, shows differences in terms of interaction with children and thus, helps the effectiveness of different treatments as we mention above. The results revealed different outcomes depending on the application: (1) effectiveness with the social robotic platform that we designed in neuropsychological treatment in those areas affected by TBI, (2) effectiveness with the LEGO robotics activities designed by a group of therapists in terms of improvement of the social skills and engagement, (3) a positive effect within mediators and facilitators of interaction and relationships between the different agents involved in the caring process: in-patients, relatives, volunteers and clinical staff (4) slight evidence towards a different interaction, in terms of time, between both groups in the average of a two-week period