Robotic Tool to Improve Skills in Children with ASD: A Preliminary Study

Robotic Tool to Improve Skills in Children with ASD: A Preliminary Study

By Sara Silva, Filomena Soares, Ana Paula Pereira, Sandra Costa, Fátima Moreira

NOTE: This is an overview of an article, which appeared in the International Journal of Life Science and Medical Research Aug. 2013 issue of the International Journal of Life Science and Medical Research.
Click here to read the entire article.

At the moment, there is no cure for ASD, but many intervention methods exist to help children with the disorder. The National Autism Society (NAS) has established a Triad of Impairments applied to people with ASD, which includes: 1) social interaction – difficulties in maintaining adequate behavior in society leading to social isolation; 2) social communication – difficulties in establishing contact with others and difficulties in verbal and nonverbal communication; 3) social imagination – inability to engage in simple games along with difficulties in generalized learning.

Research has highlighted the importance of the using robots in the development of competences, particularly as learning and practicing tools in the development of skills and in providing feedback or encouragement. This use has created new opportunities to innovate support mechanism for children with ASD. This study is part of the Robotica-Autismo project at the University of Minho in collaboration with the Special Education Unit of a group of schools in north-west Portugal. The goal was to evaluate the effect of introducing a robotic platform in the intervention of children with ASD. Interaction with these children was performed with the researcher, the ASD child, and the robot, encouraging a triadic relationship. Researchers hoped to see these changes in the children’s behavior: autonomy, communication and interaction skills, attention and eye contact, and the learning of academic and cognitive skills.

The study was very limited by an extremely small sample of three children. Originally, 14 children between the ages of 6 and 16 years were chosen for the study, but after six experiments investigators observed that not all children had the same motivation or the same level of competency.

In each of the three activities used in the study, the robot (Lego Mindstorms NXT) had the role of mediator and positive reinforcer. Children were asked to perform tasks such as gesturing to ask for something he/she wants, providing the number of balls modeled by the investigator, and identifying the color of a ball by throwing the correct one. In each activity, if the child was successful, he/she was rewarded with the robot.

The Lego Mindstorms NXT Robot

The robot seemed to be an attractive and important tool due to its repetitive and mechanical movements, but the collaboration of professionals and parents in the entire process was significant. One of the most important goals of this study was the transfer of the acquired competencies in the school environment to the real and functional family life situations. Future studies will have to incorporate much larger samples as well as follow up to determine if the transfer of competencies is maintained throughout time.