860 research outputs found

    An Intelligent Robot and Augmented Reality Instruction System

    Get PDF
    Human-Centered Robotics (HCR) is a research area that focuses on how robots can empower people to live safer, simpler, and more independent lives. In this dissertation, I present a combination of two technologies to deliver human-centric solutions to an important population. The first nascent area that I investigate is the creation of an Intelligent Robot Instructor (IRI) as a learning and instruction tool for human pupils. The second technology is the use of augmented reality (AR) to create an Augmented Reality Instruction (ARI) system to provide instruction via a wearable interface. To function in an intelligent and context-aware manner, both systems require the ability to reason about their perception of the environment and make appropriate decisions. In this work, I construct a novel formulation of several education methodologies, particularly those known as response prompting, as part of a cognitive framework to create a system for intelligent instruction, and compare these methodologies in the context of intelligent decision making using both technologies. The IRI system is demonstrated through experiments with a humanoid robot that uses object recognition and localization for perception and interacts with students through speech, gestures, and object interaction. The ARI system uses augmented reality, computer vision, and machine learning methods to create an intelligent, contextually aware instructional system. By using AR to teach prerequisite skills that lend themselves well to visual, augmented reality instruction prior to a robot instructor teaching skills that lend themselves to embodied interaction, I am able to demonstrate the potential of each system independently as well as in combination to facilitate students\u27 learning. I identify people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) as a particularly significant use case and show that IRI and ARI systems can help fulfill the compelling need to develop tools and strategies for people with I/DD. I present results that demonstrate both systems can be used independently by students with I/DD to quickly and easily acquire the skills required for performance of relevant vocational tasks. This is the first successful real-world application of response-prompting for decision making in a robotic and augmented reality intelligent instruction system

    Psychophysiological analysis of a pedagogical agent and robotic peer for individuals with autism spectrum disorders.

    Get PDF
    Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by ongoing problems in social interaction and communication, and engagement in repetitive behaviors. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 1 in 68 children in the United States has ASD. Mounting evidence shows that many of these individuals display an interest in social interaction with computers and robots and, in general, feel comfortable spending time in such environments. It is known that the subtlety and unpredictability of people’s social behavior are intimidating and confusing for many individuals with ASD. Computerized learning environments and robots, however, prepare a predictable, dependable, and less complicated environment, where the interaction complexity can be adjusted so as to account for these individuals’ needs. The first phase of this dissertation presents an artificial-intelligence-based tutoring system which uses an interactive computer character as a pedagogical agent (PA) that simulates a human tutor teaching sight word reading to individuals with ASD. This phase examines the efficacy of an instructional package comprised of an autonomous pedagogical agent, automatic speech recognition, and an evidence-based instructional procedure referred to as constant time delay (CTD). A concurrent multiple-baseline across-participants design is used to evaluate the efficacy of intervention. Additionally, post-treatment probes are conducted to assess maintenance and generalization. The results suggest that all three participants acquired and maintained new sight words and demonstrated generalized responding. The second phase of this dissertation describes the augmentation of the tutoring system developed in the first phase with an autonomous humanoid robot which serves the instructional role of a peer for the student. In this tutoring paradigm, the robot adopts a peer metaphor, where its function is to act as a peer. With the introduction of the robotic peer (RP), the traditional dyadic interaction in tutoring systems is augmented to a novel triadic interaction in order to enhance the social richness of the tutoring system, and to facilitate learning through peer observation. This phase evaluates the feasibility and effects of using PA-delivered sight word instruction, based on a CTD procedure, within a small-group arrangement including a student with ASD and the robotic peer. A multiple-probe design across word sets, replicated across three participants, is used to evaluate the efficacy of intervention. The findings illustrate that all three participants acquired, maintained, and generalized all the words targeted for instruction. Furthermore, they learned a high percentage (94.44% on average) of the non-target words exclusively instructed to the RP. The data show that not only did the participants learn nontargeted words by observing the instruction to the RP but they also acquired their target words more efficiently and with less errors by the addition of an observational component to the direct instruction. The third and fourth phases of this dissertation focus on physiology-based modeling of the participants’ affective experiences during naturalistic interaction with the developed tutoring system. While computers and robots have begun to co-exist with humans and cooperatively share various tasks; they are still deficient in interpreting and responding to humans as emotional beings. Wearable biosensors that can be used for computerized emotion recognition offer great potential for addressing this issue. The third phase presents a Bluetooth-enabled eyewear – EmotiGO – for unobtrusive acquisition of a set of physiological signals, i.e., skin conductivity, photoplethysmography, and skin temperature, which can be used as autonomic readouts of emotions. EmotiGO is unobtrusive and sufficiently lightweight to be worn comfortably without interfering with the users’ usual activities. This phase presents the architecture of the device and results from testing that verify its effectiveness against an FDA-approved system for physiological measurement. The fourth and final phase attempts to model the students’ engagement levels using their physiological signals collected with EmotiGO during naturalistic interaction with the tutoring system developed in the second phase. Several physiological indices are extracted from each of the signals. The students’ engagement levels during the interaction with the tutoring system are rated by two trained coders using the video recordings of the instructional sessions. Supervised pattern recognition algorithms are subsequently used to map the physiological indices to the engagement scores. The results indicate that the trained models are successful at classifying participants’ engagement levels with the mean classification accuracy of 86.50%. These models are an important step toward an intelligent tutoring system that can dynamically adapt its pedagogical strategies to the affective needs of learners with ASD

    Procedural-Reasoning Architecture for Applied Behavior Analysis-based Instructions

    Get PDF
    Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a complex developmental disability affecting as many as 1 in every 88 children. While there is no known cure for ASD, there are known behavioral and developmental interventions, based on demonstrated efficacy, that have become the predominant treatments for improving social, adaptive, and behavioral functions in children. Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA)-based early childhood interventions are evidence based, efficacious therapies for autism that are widely recognized as effective approaches to remediation of the symptoms of ASD. They are, however, labor intensive and consequently often inaccessible at the recommended levels. Recent advancements in socially assistive robotics and applications of virtual intelligent agents have shown that children with ASD accept intelligent agents as effective and often preferred substitutes for human therapists. This research is nascent and highly experimental with no unifying, interdisciplinary, and integral approach to development of intelligent agents based therapies, especially not in the area of behavioral interventions. Motivated by the absence of the unifying framework, we developed a conceptual procedural-reasoning agent architecture (PRA-ABA) that, we propose, could serve as a foundation for ABA-based assistive technologies involving virtual, mixed or embodied agents, including robots. This architecture and related research presented in this disser- tation encompass two main areas: (a) knowledge representation and computational model of the behavioral aspects of ABA as applicable to autism intervention practices, and (b) abstract architecture for multi-modal, agent-mediated implementation of these practices

    Evaluating Context-Aware Applications Accessed Through Wearable Devices as Assistive Technology for Students with Disabilities

    Get PDF
    The purpose of these two single subject design studies was to evaluate the use of the wearable and context-aware technologies for college students with intellectual disability and autism as tools to increase independence and vocational skills. There is a compelling need for the development of tools and strategies that will facilitate independence, self-sufficiency, and address poor outcomes in adulthood for students with disabilities. Technology is considered to be a great equalizer for people with disabilities. The proliferation of new technologies allows access to real-time, contextually-based information as a means to compensate for limitations in cognitive functioning and decrease the complexity of prerequisite skills for successful use of previous technologies. Six students participated in two single-subject design studies; three students participate in Study I and three different students participated in Study II. The results of these studies are discussed in the context applying new technology applications to assist and improve individuals with intellectual disability and autism to self-manage technological supports to learn new skills, set reminders, and enhance independence. During Study I, students were successfully taught to use a wearable smartglasses device, which delivered digital auditory and visual information to complete three novel vocational tasks. The results indicated that all students learned all vocational task using the wearable device. Students also continued to use the device beyond the initial training phase to self-direct their learning and self-manage prompts for task completion as needed. During Study II, students were successfully taught to use a wearable smartwatch device to enter novel appointments for the coming week, as well as complete the tasks associated with each appointment. The results indicated that all students were able to self-operate the wearable device to enter appointments, attend all appointments on-time and complete all associated tasks

    Effects of a writing instructional package for students with moderate intellectual disability.

    Get PDF
    The development of writing skills is one of the most complex competencies that students are expected to master (Saddler, 2013). Limited research has been conducted on the acquisition of writing skills for students with moderate and severe intellectual disability. Even fewer studies have examined the acquisition of sentence construction skills. The current study examines the effects of a writing instructional package using peer tutoring, response prompting, and sentence frames to teach students with moderate intellectual disability to construct sentences related to adapted grade-level social studies content. Four seventh grade students without disabilities were trained to implement the writing instructional package with three students with moderate intellectual disability. Maintenance over time, generalization to the general education classroom, and social validity were examined. Results indicate that all three students with moderate intellectual disability increased the number of sentences written correctly and independently about a historical artifact. Additionally, the three students increased the number of comprehension questions answered correctly about the artifact. All students maintained the results during the maintenance period and generalized the results to their general education social studies classes. Finally, the staff and students reported high levels of satisfaction with the instructional package

    Enhancing Skills in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder through Technology-Mediated Interventions

    Get PDF
    Marco teórico Las personas con Trastorno del Espectro Autista (TEA) presentan dificultades en el desarrollo de habilidades de comunicación e interacción social (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) que son fundamentales para los procesos de aprendizaje y aparición del lenguaje verbal. Una de estas habilidades es la atención conjunta (AC), que consiste en la habilidad de una persona para captar la atención de otra hacia un objeto o evento mediante el seguimiento de la mirada, señalar u otro tipo de indicación verbal o no verbal (Mundy, 2016). Por otro lado, el número de estudios sobre intervenciones mediadas por el uso de nuevas Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación (TIC) se ha incrementado exponencialmente (Kientz, Goodwin, Hayes y Abowd, 2014) especialmente debido al hecho de que las personas con TEA sienten una afinidad especial por éstas. Sin embargo, la rápida evolución de las TIC y el tiempo que es necesario para llevar a cabo un estudio de intervención y publicarlo en un foro científico (Herrera, 2015), podrían representar una barrera para el establecimiento de Prácticas Basadas en la Evidencia (EBP; Anderson, 2006) en este campo científico. Objetivo Los objetivos específicos fueron los siguientes: Describir las tendencias actuales de intervenciones basadas en el uso de TIC para personas con TEA. Describir las intervenciones basadas en el uso de TIC para la mejora de habilidades de AC en personas con TEA así como determinar su calidad metodológica y el nivel de evidencia alcanzado por esta práctica. Explorar el impacto de una intervención basada en el uso de una TIC de realidad aumentada denominada Pictogram Room sobre la mejora de las habilidades de AC de seguir la mirada y señalar en niños con TEA. Método Esta tesis se articuló en tres estudios diferentes e interconectados que buscaron dar respuesta a cada uno de los objetivos planteados. En el primer estudio se llevó a cabo una revisión sistemática que incluyó todos los estudios (a) recogidos en las bases de datos PsycINFO, PubMed, ERIC y Web of Science, (b) que incluyeron palabras clave relacionadas con TEA y las TIC, y (c) fueron publicados en inglés, en revistas de revisión por pares entre 2000 y 2015. En el segundo estudio se llevó a cabo una revisión sistemática que, siguiendo el mismo método que en el primer estudio, recogió estudios dirigidos específicamente a la mejora de las habilidades de AC. Asimismo, se aplicó el método de evaluación de Reichow, Volkmar y Ciccetti (2008) para analizar la calidad del informe de investigación y evaluar el nivel de EBP alcanzado. En el tercer estudio, se aplicó un diseño de caso único con línea base múltiple para evaluar el efecto de Pictogram Room sobre las habilidades de seguir la mirada y señalar en siete niños con TEA en su centro escolar. Además, se utilizó el método de evaluación de Reichow et al. (2008) para garantizar la calidad del informe de investigación del estudio. Resultados En el primer estudio fueron identificados un total de 178 artículos, 76% de los cuales se publicaron entre 2010 y 2015. Los participantes fueron, en su mayoría, varones de entre 5 y 17 años de edad con los que se utilizó, sobre todo, ordenadores personales para presentar secuencias interactivas en centros escolares. Los diseños de caso único fueron más utilizados que los diseños de grupo y, en general, los estudios presentaron limitaciones metodológicas tales como falta de información descriptiva (e.g., características de los participantes). De estos 178 artículos, cinco fueron incluidos en el segundo estudio. La mayoría de ellos utilizó robots con programas especialmente desarrollados para la mejora de habilidades de AC (e.g., seguir la mirada, señalar) y aplicaron diseños de investigación con ciertas limitaciones metodológicas (e.g., diseños de grupo con menos de 10 participantes y sin grupo control) que les llevó a ser calificados de débiles de acuerdo al método de Reichow et al. (2008). Por tanto, aunque los estudios de intervención revisados fueron efectivos en 21 de los 23 participantes que incluyeron, el uso de TIC para la mejora de las habilidades de AC en personas con TEA no pudo establecerse como una EBP. Finalmente, el tercer estudio mostró que el uso de Pictogram Room fue eficaz para mejorar las habilidades de seguir la mirada y señalar de 6 niños con TEA tras seis sesiones de intervención (PAND > .90; Pearson Phi > .70; p < .01), y que dicha mejora fue generalizada a otras situaciones sociales. Por último, la utilización del método de Reichow et al. (2008) a lo largo del estudio garantizó su calidad, convirtiéndolo en un estudio riguroso susceptible de ser incluido en futuros estudios de replicación y revisiones meta-analíticas. Conclusión Los estudios de intervención mediada por TIC para personas con TEA se han incrementado, especialmente en los últimos años, y todo parece indicar que su número continuará en aumento. Sin embargo, se han hallado múltiples limitaciones metodológicas en la implementación de numerosos estudios que dificultan el establecimiento de EBP. En este trabajo de tesis, se ha demostrado cómo identificando las necesidades de las personas con TEA, utilizando indicadores de calidad disponibles y teniendo en cuenta los estándares de las EBP se puede llevar a cabo un estudio de intervención de una forma rigurosa y obteniendo resultados positivos que pueden contribuir al establecimiento de EBP en el campo de investigación de las TIC para personas con TEA. Referencias bibliográficas American Psychiatric Association (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, fifth edition (DSM-5) Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing. Anderson, N. B. (2006). Evidence-based practice in psychology. American Psychologist, 61(4), 271-285. Herrera, G. (2015). App móviles para personas con trastorno del espectro del autismo. Smart Health, 2, 24-26. Kientz, J. A., Goodwin, M. S., Hayes, G. R., & Abowd, G. D. (2014). Interactive technologies for autism. Synthesis lectures on assistive, rehabilitative, and health-preserving technologies. San Rafael, CA: Morgan & Claypool Publishers. Mundy, P. C. (2016). Autism and joint attention: Development, neuroscience, and clinical fundamentals. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Reichow, B., Volkmar, F. R., & Cicchetti, D. V. (2008). Development of the evaluative method for evaluating and determining evidence-based practices in autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 38(7), 1311-1319

    Testing literacy educational software to develop design guidelines for children with Autism

    Get PDF
    Multimedia computer programs have been found to facilitate learning in children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD). However, the effectiveness of these resources is limited due to poor design or a lack of consideration of the ASD cognitive profile, particularly at the lower-functioning end of the spectrum. This paper attempts to tackle the problem of the lack of design guidelines, with the aim of facilitating the development of effective educational programs for children with severe ASD. The case study reported here evaluated two literacy educational computer programs, by observing five low-functioning children with ASD, compared to five neurotypical children (control cases). The two types of reading-support software contrasted in the study presented different characteristics. The children’s data analysed here concern observations of child-software interactive sessions based on video recordings and coded for attention deployment to each program, including motivation and engagement indicators. The results identify different patterns in the responses of the children with ASD when using the two types of software. On the basis of this case study and work by other authors, a set of guidelines is proposed, that are intended to help in designing effective educational programs for children with severe ASD. The guidelines emphasize a multi-disciplinary framework using methodologies from various research areas including software engineering, Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Child Computer Interaction (CCI), mental health, education and neuropsychology

    A Case Study: Use of Applied Behavior Analysis with an Austistic Adolescent

    Get PDF
    Socialization between individuals is an important characteristic in human development. In individuals with autism, there is a profound deficit with social skills and with social reciprocity. Interventions and techniques are utilized to help enhance these skills. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects that Applied Behavior Analysis using discrete trials can have on the ability to elicit a spontaneous greeting in various settings by an adolescent male diagnosed with autism. This study analyzed data collected during a ten week intervention program. Behavior ratings reflected some uneven progress over the ten weeks, but significant improvements in the targeted social behaviors were exhibited by the tenth week of training. The behavior checklist appeared to be an effective tool for assessing the social behavior of an adolescent male diagnosed with autism
    • …
    corecore