Head Impact Severity Measures for Small Social Robots Thrown During Meltdown in Autism

Social robots have gained a lot of attention recently as they have been reported to be effective in supporting therapeutic services for children with autism. However, children with autism may exhibit a multitude of challenging behaviors that could be harmful to themselves and to others around them. Furthermore, social robots are meant to be companions and to elicit certain social behaviors. Hence, the presence of a social robot during the occurrence of challenging behaviors might increase any potential harm. In this paper, we identified harmful scenarios that might emanate between a child and a social robot due to the manifestation of challenging behaviors. We then quantified the harm levels based on severity indices for one of the challenging behaviors (i.e. throwing of objects). Our results showed that the overall harm levels based on the selected severity indices are relatively low compared to their respective thresholds. However, our investigation of harm due to throwing of a small social robot to the head revealed that it could potentially cause tissue injuries, subconcussive or even concussive events in extreme cases. The existence of such behaviors must be accounted for and considered when developing interactive social robots to be deployed for children with autism.The work is supported by a research grant from Qatar University under the grant No. QUST-1-CENG-2018-7Scopu

Safety experiments for small robots investigating the potential of soft materials in mitigating the harm to the head due to impacts

There is a growing interest in social robots to be considered in the therapy of children with autism due to their effectiveness in improving the outcomes. However, children on the spectrum exhibit challenging behaviors that need to be considered when designing robots for them. A child could involuntarily throw a small social robot during meltdown and that could hit another person's head and cause harm (e.g. concussion). In this paper, the application of soft materials is investigated for its potential in attenuating head's linear acceleration upon impact. The thickness and storage modulus of three different soft materials were considered as the control factors while the noise factor was the impact velocity. The design of experiments was based on Taguchi method. A total of 27 experiments were conducted on a developed dummy head setup that reports the linear acceleration of the head. ANOVA tests were performed to analyze the data. The findings showed that the control factors are not statistically significant in attenuating the response. The optimal values of the control factors were identified using the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio optimization technique. Confirmation runs at the optimal parameters (i.e. thickness of 3 mm and 5 mm) showed a better response as compared to other conditions. Designers of social robots should consider the application of soft materials to their designs as it help in reducing the potential harm to the head

Neuroqueer(ing) Noise: A/autisms, affect and more-than-sonic pedagogies in an integrated early childhood classroom

In this thesis, I experiment with affect theories to think about neurodiversity, music composition, and early childhood pedagogy: this thesis sits at the intersection of social practice art and empirical social science research to craft new techniques for researchingwith sound-based methods and A/autistic practices. Drawing from critical disability studies, including crip and neuroqueer theories, and ‘post’ philosophies, I explore how neurodivergence comes to be formulated in the early childhood classroom at the intersection of racialising, abling/disabling, and Anglo-centric assemblages, challenging biocentric notions of A/autisms as residing ‘in’ a bounded body(mind) and the A/autist(ic) as a cohesive ‘type’ of person. At the same time, I keep hold of the valuable political work of A/autistic identity. I illustrate the generative friction between these perspectives with my stylised writing of A/autisms. In this thesis, I experiment with sound-based research and practice, through the process of music composition, audio recordings, and the sonified outputs of electrodermal activity devices (EDA): I explore the ethical and methodological challenges of researching with EDA in the classroom. This thesis offers two conceptual contributions for researching in early childhood settings. The first contribution is music composition research-creation, which is an artistic method for conducting sound-based research. The second contribution is A/autisms, which is an organising concept for doing critical disability research in education by keeping hold of the generative friction between disability identity, the material reality of disability, and the messiness of the label ‘autism’. I suggest that the concept A/autisms has implications not just for research in the field of critical disability studies in education, or in early childhood education, but also more broadly in how researchers orient towards the human subject in contemporary social science scholarship that draws from ‘post’ philosophies. Thus, I suggest A/autisms as method(ology). Rather than seek solely to improve educational provision for neurodivergent young people—although I intend to do that too—I hint at the ways that divergence is formulated moment-by-moment in the pedagogical encounter and how (infrequently, momentarily) divergence can be defamiliarised. In these ways, these new concepts emphasise the relationality of the (racialised, disabled) child’s body(mind) at the same time as keeping hold of the need for a dis-identitarian politics of disability. I frame this politics using neuroqueer theory. This thesis is animated by a 14-month in-school music composition researchcreation study called Neuroqueer(ing) Noise, which was a series of projects with a class of Year 1 (later Year 2) children. The study explores the instability of ‘neurotypicality’ at the intersection of racializing and abling/disabling processes. This study also experiments with and problematises electrodermal activity as method. I also think with my ongoing music composition research-creation study Oblique Curiosities