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A Long-Term Engagement with a Social Robot for Autism Therapy

Social robots are increasingly being used as a mediator between a therapist and a child in autism therapy studies. In this context, most behavioural interventions are typically short-term in nature. This paper describes a long-term study that was conducted with 11 children diagnosed with either Auti...

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Autores principales: Rakhymbayeva, Nazerke, Amirova, Aida, Sandygulova, Anara
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8241906/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34222353
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2021.669972
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author Rakhymbayeva, Nazerke
Amirova, Aida
Sandygulova, Anara
author_facet Rakhymbayeva, Nazerke
Amirova, Aida
Sandygulova, Anara
author_sort Rakhymbayeva, Nazerke
collection PubMed
description Social robots are increasingly being used as a mediator between a therapist and a child in autism therapy studies. In this context, most behavioural interventions are typically short-term in nature. This paper describes a long-term study that was conducted with 11 children diagnosed with either Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or ASD in co-occurrence with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). It uses a quantitative analysis based on behavioural measures, including engagement, valence, and eye gaze duration. Each child interacted with a robot on several occasions in which each therapy session was customized to a child’s reaction to robot behaviours. This paper presents a set of robot behaviours that were implemented with the goal to offer a variety of activities to be suitable for diverse forms of autism. Therefore, each child experienced an individualized robot-assisted therapy that was tailored according to the therapist’s knowledge and judgement. The statistical analyses showed that the proposed therapy managed to sustain children’s engagement. In addition, sessions containing familiar activities kept children more engaged compared to those sessions containing unfamiliar activities. The results of the interviews with parents and therapists are discussed in terms of therapy recommendations. The paper concludes with some reflections on the current study as well as suggestions for future studies.
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spelling pubmed-82419062021-07-01 A Long-Term Engagement with a Social Robot for Autism Therapy Rakhymbayeva, Nazerke Amirova, Aida Sandygulova, Anara Front Robot AI Robotics and AI Social robots are increasingly being used as a mediator between a therapist and a child in autism therapy studies. In this context, most behavioural interventions are typically short-term in nature. This paper describes a long-term study that was conducted with 11 children diagnosed with either Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or ASD in co-occurrence with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). It uses a quantitative analysis based on behavioural measures, including engagement, valence, and eye gaze duration. Each child interacted with a robot on several occasions in which each therapy session was customized to a child’s reaction to robot behaviours. This paper presents a set of robot behaviours that were implemented with the goal to offer a variety of activities to be suitable for diverse forms of autism. Therefore, each child experienced an individualized robot-assisted therapy that was tailored according to the therapist’s knowledge and judgement. The statistical analyses showed that the proposed therapy managed to sustain children’s engagement. In addition, sessions containing familiar activities kept children more engaged compared to those sessions containing unfamiliar activities. The results of the interviews with parents and therapists are discussed in terms of therapy recommendations. The paper concludes with some reflections on the current study as well as suggestions for future studies. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-06-16 /pmc/articles/PMC8241906/ /pubmed/34222353 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2021.669972 Text en Copyright © 2021 Rakhymbayeva, Amirova and Sandygulova. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Robotics and AI
Rakhymbayeva, Nazerke
Amirova, Aida
Sandygulova, Anara
A Long-Term Engagement with a Social Robot for Autism Therapy
title A Long-Term Engagement with a Social Robot for Autism Therapy
title_full A Long-Term Engagement with a Social Robot for Autism Therapy
title_fullStr A Long-Term Engagement with a Social Robot for Autism Therapy
title_full_unstemmed A Long-Term Engagement with a Social Robot for Autism Therapy
title_short A Long-Term Engagement with a Social Robot for Autism Therapy
title_sort long-term engagement with a social robot for autism therapy
topic Robotics and AI
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8241906/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34222353
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2021.669972
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