Can NAO Robot Improve Eye-Gaze Attention of Children with High Functioning Autism?

Feng, Huanghao; Gutierrez, Anibal; Zhang, Jun; Mahoor, Mohammad H.

doi:10.1109/ichi.2013.72

Cited by 18 publications

(14 citation statements)

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“…The above mentioned robots are being used to elicit such behaviors as imitation, joint attention, and eye contact. The humanoid robot NAO, which is the main instrument of the current study, has also been used in a number of studies with the general aim of autism diagnosis and treatment and the specific aim of helping autistic children with imitation, joint attention, interaction, communication, making eye contacts, showing emotions, and/or eye gaze attention [14][15][16][17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social robots as assistants for autism therapy in Iran: Research in progress

Taheri

Alemi

Meghdari

et al. 2014

2014 Second RSI/ISM International Conference on Robotics and Mechatronics (ICRoM)

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Autistic children are often impaired in initiating and responding to Joint Attention. In recent years, there has been an increase in the application of robots in diagnosis and treatment of autism. The purpose of the current research has been primarily to originate the proper therapeutic scenarios and to implement two interactive humanoid robots as therapy assistants in autism treatment in Iran. To this end, the humanoid robots were programmed and teleoperated via Microsoft Kinect Sensor and PhantomOmni Haptic Robot to elicit reactions consisting of imitation of humans by the humanoid robots and vice versa. In this paper, we elaborate on the therapeutic items that we have designed to improve joint attention and imitation in autistic children through using humanoid robots. Moreover, the fairly promising results of some interventions conducted in a pilot study on four autistic cases will be addressed and discussed. Our research target is to increase social interaction and involve autistic children in dyadic/triadic interactions which seems quite possible due to the findings of the pilot study conducted.i

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social robots as assistants for autism therapy in Iran: Research in progress

Taheri

Alemi

Meghdari

et al. 2014

2014 Second RSI/ISM International Conference on Robotics and Mechatronics (ICRoM)

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“…Socially assistive robots are becoming increasingly popular as interventions for youth with autism. Previous studies have focused on eye contact and joint attention Mihalache et al (2020) ; Mavadati et al (2014) ; Feng et al (2013) , showing that the pattern of gaze perception in the ASD group is similar to Typically Developing (TD) children as well as the fact eye contact skills can be significantly improved after interventional sessions. These findings also provide strong evidence that ASD children are more inclined to engage with humanoid robots in various types of social activities, especially if the robots are socially intelligent Anzalone et al (2015) .…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Social robots are also unique in their prior success in working with children with ASD Boucenna et al (2014b) ; Pennisi et al (2016) . Previous studies have found children with autism have less interest in communicating with humans due to how easily these interactions can become overwhelming Marinoiu et al (2018) ; Di Nuovo et al (2018) ; Richardson et al (2018) ; Feng et al (2013) and instead are more willing to interact with humanoid social robots in daily life due to their relatively still faces and less intimidating characteristics. Some research has found that children with ASD speak more while interacting with a non-humanoid robot compared to regular human-human interactions Kim et al (2013) .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Music-Therapy Robotic Platform for Children With Autism: A Pilot Study

2022

Self Cite

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Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) experience deficits in verbal and nonverbal communication skills including motor control, turn-taking, and emotion recognition. Innovative technology, such as socially assistive robots, has shown to be a viable method for Autism therapy. This paper presents a novel robot-based music-therapy platform for modeling and improving the social responses and behaviors of children with ASD. Our autonomous social interactive system consists of three modules. Module one provides an autonomous initiative positioning system for the robot, NAO, to properly localize and play the instrument (Xylophone) using the robot’s arms. Module two allows NAO to play customized songs composed by individuals. Module three provides a real-life music therapy experience to the users. We adopted Short-time Fourier Transform and Levenshtein distance to fulfill the design requirements: 1) “music detection” and 2) “smart scoring and feedback”, which allows NAO to understand music and provide additional practice and oral feedback to the users as applicable. We designed and implemented six Human-Robot-Interaction (HRI) sessions including four intervention sessions. Nine children with ASD and seven Typically Developing participated in a total of fifty HRI experimental sessions. Using our platform, we collected and analyzed data on social behavioral changes and emotion recognition using Electrodermal Activity (EDA) signals. The results of our experiments demonstrate most of the participants were able to complete motor control tasks with 70% accuracy. Six out of the nine ASD participants showed stable turn-taking behavior when playing music. The results of automated emotion classification using Support Vector Machines illustrates that emotional arousal in the ASD group can be detected and well recognized via EDA bio-signals. In summary, the results of our data analyses, including emotion classification using EDA signals, indicate that the proposed robot-music based therapy platform is an attractive and promising assistive tool to facilitate the improvement of fine motor control and turn-taking skills in children with ASD.

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“…Other findings indicate that the children are more concentrated with robots (Kirstein and Risager, 2016). Some researchers have studied the effects of a robot on eye contact, on establishing joint attention and on sequences of social interaction (Feng, Gutierrez, Zhang, et al., 2013; Ismail, Shamsudin, Yussof, et al., 2012; So, Cheng, Lam, et al., 2020; Zorcec, Robins, and Dautenhahn, 2018). One team of researchers found that using a simple and minimally expressive humanoid robot called Kaspar (a robot with the traits of a young boy and rudimentary facial expressions) made it easier to develop interactive play with autistic children (Robins, Dautenhahn, and Dickerson, 2009).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Educators' perspectives on working with a humanoid robot in a French preschool class for autistic children

Garnier¹,

Martel²,

Dachez³

et al. 2023

Research in Spec Educ Needs

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Humanoid robots have shown to provide interesting perspectives for autistic children. Yet, few studies have looked at educators' point of view on the use of such robots in educational settings. This paper presents a case study of the use of a humanoid robot, NAO, in a French preschool class dedicated to autistic children. Our work focuses on the perspectives of the adults working with these children. We interviewed the professional staff about changes in their teaching due to the presence of the robot, about the effects on the pupils' behaviour, and about the collaboration between the special needs teacher, the special needs support worker and the operational specialist from the digital education department of the district academic head office. Four themes were identified: joint reflection and collaboration when working with NAO, working with NAO, impact of NAO on pupils, impact of NAO on adults. The professionals underscored the necessity of adopting certain attitudes, in particular, the most neutral facial expression possible, so as not to disturb the children's learning process. They were under the impression that the robot had a beneficial effect on the pupils in terms of learning and social skills, and that it facilitated collaboration among them.

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Can NAO Robot Improve Eye-Gaze Attention of Children with High Functioning Autism?

Cited by 18 publications

References 0 publications

Social robots as assistants for autism therapy in Iran: Research in progress

Social robots as assistants for autism therapy in Iran: Research in progress

A Music-Therapy Robotic Platform for Children With Autism: A Pilot Study

Educators' perspectives on working with a humanoid robot in a French preschool class for autistic children

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