The aim of this study was to explore the potential of using a social robot in speech therapy interventions in children. A descriptive and explorative case study design was implemented involving the intervention for language disorder in five children with different needs with an age ranging from 9 to 12 years. Children participated in sessions with a NAO-type robot in individual sessions. Qualitative methods were used to collect data on aspects of viability, usefulness, barriers and facilitators for the child as well as for the therapist in order to obtain an indication of the effects on learning and the achievement of goals. The main results pointed out the affordances and possibilities of the use of a NAO robot in achieving speech therapy and educational goals. A NAO can contribute towards eliciting motivation, readiness towards learning and improving attention span of the children. The results of the study showed the potential that NAO has in therapy and education for children with different disabilities. More research is needed to gain insight into how a NAO can be applied best in speech therapy to make a more inclusive education conclusions.

The effectiveness of social robots such as NAO in pedagogical therapies presents a challenge. There is abundant literature focused on therapies using robots with children with autism, but there is a gap to be filled in other educational different needs. This paper describes an experience of using a NAO as an assistant in a logopedic and pedagogical therapy with children with different needs. Even if the initial robot architecture is based on genericbehaviors, the loading and execution time for each specific requirement and the needs of each child in therapy, made it necessary to develop “Adaptive Behaviors”. These evolve into an adaptive architecture, appliedto the engineer–therapist–child interaction, requiring the engineer-programmer to be always present during the sessions. Benefits from the point of view of the therapist and the children and the acceptance of NAO in therapy are shown. A robot in speech-therapy sessions can play a positive role in several logopedic aspectsserving as a motivating factor for the children.Future works should be oriented in developing intelligent algorithms so as to eliminate the presence of the engineer-programmer in the sessions. Additional work proposals should consider deepening the psychological aspects of using humanoid robots in educational therapy.

Abstract-As robotic systems become more popular in household environments, the complexity of required tasks also increases. In this work we focus on a domestic chore deemed dull by a majority of the population, the task of ironing. The presented algorithm improves on the limited number of previous works by joining 3D perception with force/torque sensing, with emphasis on finding a practical solution with a feasible implementation in a domestic setting. Our algorithm obtains a point cloud representation of the working environment. From this point cloud, the garment is segmented and a custom Wrinkleness Local Descriptor (WiLD) is computed to determine the location of the present wrinkles. Using this descriptor, the most suitable ironing path is computed and, based on it, the manipulation algorithm performs the force-controlled ironing operation. Experiments have been performed with a humanoid robot platform, proving that our algorithm is able to detect successfully wrinkles present in garments and iteratively reduce the wrinkleness using an unmodified iron.

Texto resumen.

No abstract