Cross-Collaborative Approach to Socially-Assistive Robotics: A Case Study of Humanoid Robots in a Therapeutic Intervention for Autistic Children

• Published in: Social Robots: Technological, Societal and Ethical Aspects of Human-Robot Interaction pp. 165 - 186
• Main Authors: Silvera-Tawil, David, Brown, Scott Andrew
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Springer International Publishing AG 2019; Springer International Publishing
• Series: Human–Computer Interaction Series
• Subjects: Applied behavioral analysis; Autism spectrum disorder; Social stories; Socially-assistive robotics
• ISBN: 9783030171063; 303017106X
• ISSN: 1571-5035; 2524-4477
• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-17107-0_9

Autism is a developmental condition that can cause significant social, communication, and behavioral challenges. Children on the Autism spectrum may have difficulties developing social and communication skills. A recent trend in robotics is the design and implementation of robots to assist during the therapy and education of children with learning difficulties. In this chapter, we reflect on lessons learned from a cross-collaborative research project involving a socially-assistive robot, KASPAR, as a tool to support therapy with autistic children. We provide experimental results from a small study using this Humanoid robot in combination with Social StoriesTM. We point to the strengths and challenges of our approach and discuss how others might use our experience as a guide to improving experimental and therapeutic outcomes.