Socially Assistive Robot Enabled Home-Based Care for Supporting People with Autism

The growing number of people diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is an issue of concern in Australia and many countries. In order to improve the engagement, reciprocity, productivity and usefulness of people with ASD in a home-based environment, in this paper the authors report on a 9 month Australian home-based care trial of socially assistive robot (Lucy) to support two young adults with autism. This work demonstrates that by marrying personhood (of people with ASD) with human-like communication modalities of Lucy potentially positive outcomes can be achieved in terms of engagement, productivity and usefulness as well as reciprocity of the people with ASD. Lucy also provide respite to their carers (e.g., parents) in their day to day living

Applications of Robotics for Autism Spectrum Disorder: a Scoping Review

Robotic therapies are receiving growing interest in the autism field, especially for the improvement of social skills of children, enhancing traditional human interventions. In this work, we conduct a scoping review of the literature in robotics for autism, providing the largest review on this field from the last five years. Our work underlines the need to better characterize participants and to increase the sample size. It is also important to develop homogeneous training protocols to analyse and compare the results. Nevertheless, 7 out of the 10 Randomized control trials reported a significant impact of robotic therapy. Overall, robot autonomy, adaptability and personalization as well as more standardized outcome measures were pointed as the most critical issues to address in future research

Robotics Technology in Mental Health Care

This chapter discusses the existing and future use of robotics and intelligent sensing technology in mental health care. While the use of this technology is nascent in mental health care, it represents a potentially useful tool in the practitioner's toolbox. The goal of this chapter is to provide a brief overview of the field, discuss the recent use of robotics technology in mental health care practice, explore some of the design issues and ethical issues of using robots in this space, and finally to explore the potential of emerging technology

A Spectrum of Tech: An Integrated Literature Review of Technologies to Target Social Skills in Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often have limited social or communication skills and, thus, need extra assistance in learning when and how to engage in appropriate interactions with those around them. However, because there are several different individual skills (e.g., joint attention, emotional expression, etc.) that fall under the categories of social and communication skills, and there are even more options of devices and programs to choose from within assistive technology (AT) and instructional technology (IT), it may seem daunting to find the right technology to meet a specific child’s needs and to determine whether that technology procedures lasting results. The purpose of this integrated literature review was to investigate whether devices used for social skills intervention in PreK-12 students with ASD function as either AT or IT, with the secondary goal of determining which technologies promote better maintenance and generalization than others in social skills interventions in PreK-12 students with ASD. Analysis of published research studies on Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Games, Video Modeling, Social Robots, and Wearable Assistive Technologies demonstrate that many of these technologies function as either AT or IT, depending on the context of the situation. Furthermore, it was found that certain devices, specifically Video Modeling and Social Robots, promote better maintenance and generalization

A Review on Current and Potential Applications of Robotics In Mental Health Care

Robotics technology is most commonly associated with robots, that are physically embodied systems capable of causing physical change in the world. Robots execute this transformation via effectors that either move the robot itself (locomotion) or move items in the environment (manipulation), and they frequently make judgments based on data from sensors. Robot autonomy can range from totally teleoperated to fully autonomous (the robot is entirely independent). The word robotics technology also encompasses related technologies, such as sensor systems, data processing algorithms, and so forth.  While in recent years this has evolved outward, with an emphasis on difficulties connected to dealing with actual people in the real world. This transition has been referred to as human-centered robotics in the literature, and a developing topic in the last decade focused on difficulties in this arena is known as human robot interaction (HRI). The application of robotics technology in mental health treatment is still in its early stages, but it offers a potentially beneficial tool in the professional's arsenal