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It is often overlooked in human-robot gestural interactions that, robot produce sound when they move. That aspect might be either beneficial or detrimental to the interaction, but it should be taken into account, especially in the context of robot-assisted therapy. In this paper, we therefore considered sensory perception in the case of typically developing children and children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders and designed a pilot study with twenty participants to evaluate the impact the sound of actuators has on a rhythmic gestural interaction. Participants were asked to perform a waving-like gesture back at a robot in three different conditions: with visual perception only, auditory perception only and both perceptions. We analyze coordination performance and focus of gaze in each condition. Preliminary results indicate that the sound of actuators might be beneficial for children with autism and only slightly disruptive for typically developing children.

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