Robot facilitated rehabilitation of children with autism spectrum disorder: A 10 year scoping review

Abstract

Background: A severe shortage of skilled clinicians and infrastructure limits the delivery of early intervention programmes for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) children that are labour and duration intensive and most advantageous in the first 3 years. Aim: Assess the role of robot mediated intervention (RMI) role in the rehabilitation of ASD individuals by responding to five research questions in the area of (1) Technology maturity; (2) Skill improvement areas; (3) Research design including participant's demographics, datasets, intervention details, and evaluation tools; (4) Data gathering, analysis, and technology contribution, and (5) Role of Robots in intervention and its effectiveness. Methods: Scoping review included RMI studies for ASD individuals published in PUBMED, SCOPUS, and IEEE-Xplore databases between January 1, 2011, and December 31, 2020. The publications were evaluated utilizing the PRISMA scoping review criteria (PRISMA-ScR) checklist and the Critical Appraisal Skills Program (CASP). Results: The 59 selected publications demonstrated that RMI improved skills for ASD individuals in 12 areas. During RMI, extensive joint attention stimuli were given to ASD individuals, and the therapy promoted ASD children's eye contact, imitation, socio-communication, and academic skills. However, various ethical, privacy, and safety concerns were reported in the review. Conclusion: RMI can improve access, quality, and affordability in ASD intervention. The acceptance and use of technology can be fast-tracked by (1) incorporating statistically valid study designs; (2) carrying out field trials including diverse participant groups; (3) standardizing datasets with quality parameters; (4) recruiting statistically appropriate participant groups from ASD, Neuro Typical (NT) and diverse developmental disorder population; and (5) and addressing ethical, privacy, safety, trust, and other stakeholder concerns.

Social robots in research on social and cognitive development in infants and toddlers: A Scoping review

“…Our review provides an overview of general characteristics, methods, research focus, findings, and the reported gaps and challenges when social robots are used in early developmental research. Previous systematic reviews and scoping reviews have focused on using social robots with older children in other settings, such as in education (97), supporting autism development (98)(99)(100)(101)(102), or various health care contexts (103)(104)(105)(106). Although we maintained the wide approach of a scoping review, we found that an overarching research focus in the reviewed literature was to determine if social robots can act as social partners for young children.…”