Affective Communication for Socially Assistive Robots (SARs) for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Research on affective communication for socially assistive robots has been conducted to enable physical robots to perceive, express, and respond emotionally. However, the use of affective computing in social robots has been limited, especially when social robots are designed for children, and especially those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Social robots are based on cognitive-affective models, which allow them to communicate with people following social behaviors and rules. However, interactions between a child and a robot may change or be different compared to those with an adult or when the child has an emotional deficit. In this study, we systematically reviewed studies related to computational models of emotions for children with ASD. We used the Scopus, WoS, Springer, and IEEE-Xplore databases to answer different research questions related to the definition, interaction, and design of computational models supported by theoretical psychology approaches from 1997 to 2021. Our review found 46 articles; not all the studies considered children or those with ASD.

Design Path for a Social Robot for Emotional Communication for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

“…Figure 4 shows the assignment given to the body parts essential for a robot to teach an emotion, also evaluated using a five-point Likert scale. The body parts with the highest values were head (89), hands (87), and eyes (83). Figure 4 shows the assignment given to the body parts essential for a robot to teach an emotion, also evaluated using a five-point Likert scale.…”

ChatGPT Review: A Sophisticated Chatbot Models in Medical & Health-related Teaching and Learning

“…The healthcare industry is only one of many that is seeing an uptick in the creation of chatbots and other conversational agents [14]. Chatbots, made possible by recent developments in natural language processing (NLP) and AI, are already being put to use in a variety of healthcare settings, including symptom triage [15], mental state classification [16], medicine recommendation [17], and promotion of health education [18].…”

Emotional intelligence and autism spectrum disorder

“…In this study [101] systematically reviewed 46 studies related to computational models of emotion for children with ASD, to answer various research questions related to the definition, interaction and design of computational models supported by theoretical psychology and only 12 studies focus on children with/without ASD, where three studies involve children with ASD. The Moxie was the only robot to integrate applied behavior analysis (ABA) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) into the STAR framework.…”