Development of Disaster Education Digital Material for Elementary Schoolchild: Fostering an Attitude of Subjective Behavior toward Earthquakes

This study developed the disaster education digital material for elementary schoolchildren, and examined the teaching effectiveness of this material. Eighty-five schoolchildren attended the class using this material twice, and did homework with their parents. Before and after the class, they answered the questionnaire to measure their learning effect (attitude toward subjective behavior, motivation toward disaster prevention action in cooperation with parents: both 3 items) and their evaluation of the class (3 items)．The results generally indicated that their attitude of subjective behavior, and their motivation toward disaster prevention action was higher after the education, and their evaluation of class were high. These results generally showed the effectiveness of this material. In future studies, generalizability of these results should be examined.研究ノー

Enhancement of the communication efficiency of interactive robots for autism therapy by using touch and colour feedback

Previous studies in the field of robot assisted therapy demonstrated that robots engage autistic children’s attention in a better way. Therefore, the interactive robots appear to be a promising approach for improving the social interaction and communication skills of autistic children. However, most of the existing interactive robots use a very small number of communication variableswhich narrow their effectiveness to a few aspects of autistic childrens’ social communication behaviour. In the present work, we explore the effects of touching and colours on the communication effectiveness between a robot and an autistic child and their potential for further adjustability of the robot to child’s behaviour. Firstly, we investigated touching patterns of autistic and non-autistic children in three different situations and validated their responses by comparison of touching forces. Results showed that patterns of touching by non-autistic children have certain consistency, while reaction patterns in autistic children vary from person to person. Secondly, we studied the effect of colour feedback in autism therapy with the robot. Results showed that participants achieved better completion rate when colour feedback was provided. The results could support the design of more effective therapeutic robots for children with autism

Enhancement of the Communication Effectiveness of Interactive Robots for Autism Therapy by Using Touch and Colour Feedback

Previous studies in the field of robot assisted therapy demonstrated that robots engage autistic children’s attention in a better way. Therefore, the interactive robots appear to be a promising approach for improving the social interaction and communication skills of autistic children. However, most of the existing interactive robots use a very small number of communication variableswhich narrow their effectiveness to a few aspects of autistic childrens’ social communication behaviour. In the present work, we explore the effects of touching and colours on the communication effectiveness between a robot and an autistic child and their potential for further adjustability of the robot to child’s behaviour. Firstly, we investigated touching patterns of autistic and non-autistic children in three different situations and validated their responses by comparison of touching forces. Results showed that patterns of touching by non-autistic children have certain consistency, while reaction patterns in autistic children vary from person to person. Secondly, we studied the effect of colour feedback in autism therapy with the robot. Results showed that participants achieved better completion rate when colour feedback was provided. The results could support the design of more effective therapeutic robots for children with autism

Which Robot Features Can Stimulate Better Responses from Children with Autism in Robot-Assisted Therapy?

This study explores the response of autistic children to a few design features of the robots for autism therapy and provides suggestions on the robot features that have a stronger influence on the therapeutic process. First, we investigate the effect of selected robot features on the development of social communication skills in autistic children. The results indicate that the toy's “face” and “moving limb” usually draw the children's attention and improve children's facial expression skills, but do not contribute to the development of other social communication skills. Secondly, we study the response of children with low-functioning autism to robots with verbal communication functionalities. Test results show that children interacted with the verbal-featured robot more intensively than with the experimenter. We conclude that robots with faces and moving limbs can engage autistic children in a better way. Facial expression of the robots can elicit a greater response than prompting by humans