Early therapeutic intervention programs help children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to improve their socio-emotional and functional skills. To relieve the children’s caregivers while ensuring that the children are adequately supported in their training exercises, new technologies may offer suitable solutions. This study investigates the potential of a robotic learning assistant which is planned to monitor the children’s state of engagement and to intervene with appropriate motivational nudges when necessary. To analyze stakeholder requirements, interviews with parents as well as therapists of children with ASD were conducted. Besides a general positive attitude towards the usage of new technologies, we received some important insights for the design of the robot and its interaction with the children. One strongly accentuated aspect was the robot’s adequate and context-specific communication behavior, which we plan to address via an AI-based engagement detection system. Further aspects comprise for instance customizability, adaptability, and variability of the robot’s behavior, which should further be not too distracting while still being highly predictable.

Many refugees experience critical life events or traumatic injuries during their flights. Here, underaged, (un)accompanied refugees are a particularly vulnerable group. To date, there are insufficient support structures that recognize the specific demands and allow for careful and early identification of indicators of traumatization or behavioral problems. As an approach to counteract these deficits and support underage refugees, the TraM project investigates the potential of an AI-based screening tool providing indications of post-traumatic stress disorder via speech-emotion-recognition. A data collection for standardized learning data was conducted as a basis for the described screening module and the planned algorithms for automatic classification. We encountered several challenges such as insufficient data quality, uncertain classifications, and comorbidities such as depression as potentially confounding factors. Accordingly, emphasis lays on using the screening module for an initial examination of mental health and potential traumatization. This may encourage affected underage refugees to seek the help that is often highly needed.