TY - GEN
T1 - Robot-based therapeutic protocol for training children with Autism
AU - Mavadati, S. Mohammad
AU - Feng, Haunghao
AU - Salvador, Michelle
AU - Silver, Sophia
AU - Gutierrez, Anibal
AU - Mahoor, Mohammad H.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research is supported by National Science Foundation grant (IIS-1450933)
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 IEEE.
Copyright:
Copyright 2017 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2016/11/15
Y1 - 2016/11/15
N2 - Robots are commonly used artificial agents with powerful capabilities in navigation, perception and execution in the physical world. One interesting question is how well robots can assist and engage individuals with social and behavioral deficits (such as autism) to acquire new skills? Preliminary studies in autism research demonstrate that in many cases individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) interact more actively and engagingly with robots than humans. As there are limited investigations for utilizing robots in social and behavioral treatments of individuals with ASD, we designed and evaluated a robot-based intervention protocol using a social robot (NAO) to deliver behavioral training mechanism for children with ASD. Results of our pilot study on seven verbal children with high functioning autism show behavioral response improvement, including pointing and facial expression recognition in the majority of the participants as a consequence of the behavioral intervention delivered directly through the robot. Results also show that individuals were able to engage in these learned skills during human-human follow-up sessions.
AB - Robots are commonly used artificial agents with powerful capabilities in navigation, perception and execution in the physical world. One interesting question is how well robots can assist and engage individuals with social and behavioral deficits (such as autism) to acquire new skills? Preliminary studies in autism research demonstrate that in many cases individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) interact more actively and engagingly with robots than humans. As there are limited investigations for utilizing robots in social and behavioral treatments of individuals with ASD, we designed and evaluated a robot-based intervention protocol using a social robot (NAO) to deliver behavioral training mechanism for children with ASD. Results of our pilot study on seven verbal children with high functioning autism show behavioral response improvement, including pointing and facial expression recognition in the majority of the participants as a consequence of the behavioral intervention delivered directly through the robot. Results also show that individuals were able to engage in these learned skills during human-human follow-up sessions.
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U2 - 10.1109/ROMAN.2016.7745219
DO - 10.1109/ROMAN.2016.7745219
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85003018254
T3 - 25th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, RO-MAN 2016
SP - 855
EP - 860
BT - 25th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, RO-MAN 2016
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 25th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, RO-MAN 2016
Y2 - 26 August 2016 through 31 August 2016
ER -