Enhancement of the Communication Effectiveness of Interactive Robots for Autism Therapy by Using Touch and Colour Feedback
Previous studies in the field of robot assisted therapy demonstrated that robots engage autistic children’s attention in a better way. Therefore, the interactive robots appear to be a promising approach for improving the social interaction and communication skills of autistic children. However, most...
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Published in | Paladyn (Warsaw) Vol. 5; no. 1 |
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Main Authors | , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
De Gruyter Open
26.08.2014
De Gruyter |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Previous studies in the field of robot assisted
therapy demonstrated that robots engage autistic children’s
attention in a better way. Therefore, the interactive
robots appear to be a promising approach for improving
the social interaction and communication skills
of autistic children. However, most of the existing interactive
robots use a very small number of communication
variableswhich narrow their effectiveness to a few aspects
of autistic childrens’ social communication behaviour. In
the present work, we explore the effects of touching and
colours on the communication effectiveness between a
robot and an autistic child and their potential for further
adjustability of the robot to child’s behaviour. Firstly, we
investigated touching patterns of autistic and non-autistic
children in three different situations and validated their responses
by comparison of touching forces. Results showed
that patterns of touching by non-autistic children have certain
consistency, while reaction patterns in autistic children
vary from person to person. Secondly, we studied
the effect of colour feedback in autism therapy with the
robot. Results showed that participants achieved better
completion rate when colour feedback was provided. The
results could support the design of more effective therapeutic
robots for children with autism. |
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ISSN: | 2081-4836 2081-4836 |
DOI: | 10.2478/pjbr-2014-0004 |