This paper presents a series of 4 single subject experiments aimed to investigate whether children with autism show more social engagement when interacting with the Nao robot, compared to a human partner in a motor imitation task. The Nao robot imitates gross arm movements of the child in real-time. Different behavioral criteria (i.e. eye gaze, gaze shifting, free initiations and prompted initiations of arm movements, and smile/laughter) were analyzed based on the video data of the interaction. The results are mixed and suggest a high variability in reactions to the Nao robot. The results are as follows: For Child2 and Child3, the results indicate no effect of the Nao robot in any of the target variables. Child1 and Child4 showed more eye gaze and smile/laughter in the interaction with the Nao robot compared to the human partner and Child1 showed a higher frequency of motor initiations in the interaction with the Nao robot compared to the baselines, but not with respect to the human-interaction. The robot proved to be a better facilitator of shared attention only for Child1. Keywords: human-robot interaction; assistive robotics; autism

The use of robots in therapy for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) raises issues concerning the ethical and social acceptability of this technology and, more generally, about human-robot interaction. However, usually philosophical papers on the ethics of human-robot-interaction do not take into account stakeholders' views; yet it is important to involve stakeholders in order to render the research responsive to concerns within the autism and autism therapy community. To support responsible research and innovation in this field, this paper identifies a range of ethical, social and therapeutic concerns, and presents and discusses the results of an exploratory survey that investigated these issues and explored stakeholders' expectations about this kind of therapy. We conclude that although in general stakeholders approve of using robots in therapy for children with ASD, it is wise to avoid replacing therapists by robots and to develop and use robots that have what we call supervised autonomy. This is likely to create more trust among stakeholders and improve the quality of the therapy. Moreover, our research suggests that issues concerning the appearance of the robot need to be adequately dealt with by the researchers and therapists. For instance, our survey suggests that zoomorphic robots may be less problematic than robots that look too much like humans.

This paper aims to study the role of the social robot Probo in providing assistance to a therapist for robot assisted therapy (RAT) with autistic children. Children with autism have difficulties with social interaction and several studies indicate that they show preference toward interaction with objects, such as computers and robots, rather than with humans. In 1991, Carol Gray developed Social Stories, an intervention tool aimed to increase children's social skills. Social stories are short scenarios written or tailored for autistic individuals to help them understand and behave appropriately in social situations. This study shows that, in specific situations, the social performance of autistic children improves when using the robot Probo, as a medium for social story telling, than when a human reader tells the stories. The robot tells Social Stories to teach ASD children how to react in situations like saying "hello", saying "thank you" and "sharing toys". The robot has the capability of expressing emotions and attention via its facial expressions and its gaze. The paper discusses the use of Probo as an added-value therapeutic tool for social story telling and presents the first experimental results

Robot-assisted therapy (RAT) is an emerging field that has already seen some success and is likely to develop in the future. One particular application area is within therapies for autism spectrum disorders, in which the viability of the approach has been demonstrated.The present paper is a vision paper with the aim of identifying research directions in the near future of RAT. Specifically, we argue that the next step in such therapeutic scenarios is the development of more substantial levels of autonomy which would allow the robot to adapt to the individual needs of children over longer periods of time (while remaining under the ultimate supervision of a therapist). We argue that this requires new advances on the level of robot controllers as well as the ability to infer and classify intentions, goals and emotional states of the robot’s interactants. We show that the state of the art in a number of relevant disciplines is now at the point at which such an endeavour can be approached in earnest.

Background and Objectives:The aim of this exploratory study is to test whether social stories presented by a social robot have a greater effect than ones presented on a computer display in increasing the independency in expressing social abilities of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Although much progress has been made in developing interventions to improve social skills of children with ASD, a number of unresolved problems still remain. Social robots received increased attention as assisting tools for improving social skills on children with ASD. Methods: Twenty children with ASD (age between 4 and 9 years old) were randomly allocated to three groups: control group (n = 7), computer-presented social stories (n = 6), and robot assisted therapy (n = 7). Results: Overall, our data indicate that using the social robot to implement social story intervention was more effective for improving the independency of expressing social abilities for the participants, than the computer screen. Limitations: Future studies should include a bigger sample size, more intervention sessions, and a follow-up session in order to see if the effect persists in time. Conclusions: The preliminary outcomes of this exploratory research provide empirical bases for further investigations regarding the effectiveness of robot assisted therapy in improving social skills for children with autism through future randomized clinical trials.