A Survey of Expectations About the Role of Robots in Robot-Assisted Therapy for Children with ASD (original) (raw)
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Science and Engineering Ethics, 2015
The use of robots in therapy for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) raises issues concerning the ethical and social acceptability of this technology and, more generally, about human-robot interaction. However, usually philosophical papers on the ethics of human-robot-interaction do not take into account stakeholders' views; yet it is important to involve stakeholders in order to render the research responsive to concerns within the autism and autism therapy community. To support responsible research and innovation in this field, this paper identifies a range of ethical, social and therapeutic concerns, and presents and discusses the results of an exploratory survey that investigated these issues and explored stakeholders' expectations about this kind of therapy. We conclude that although in general stakeholders approve of using robots in therapy for children with ASD, it is wise to avoid replacing therapists by robots and to develop and use robots that have what we call supervised autonomy. This is likely to create more trust among stakeholders and improve the quality of the therapy. Moreover, our research suggests that issues concerning the appearance of the robot need to be adequately dealt with by the researchers and therapists. For instance, our survey suggests that zoomorphic robots may be less problematic than robots that look too much like humans.
Therapists’ Perspectives After Implementing a Robot into Autism Therapy
2021 30th IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), 2021
Socially assistive robots (SARs) are currently being developed to assist in the delivery of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapies to individuals diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Although SARs have demonstrated positive outcomes, minimal research has focused on investigating needs of the therapists that deliver treatments. Therapist perspectives are important as they will likely be the primary end-users of SARs. In this study, we investigated the perceptions and design requirements of ABA therapists towards SARs and the interfaces used to operate them. Therapists were interviewed after they independently designed, developed, and implemented their own robot-mediated interventions. Overall, therapists’ general perceptions towards integrating a SAR within their existing workflow was positive and they expected that children would benefit from ABA therapies delivered by a SAR. The therapists also provided insights on design requirements for utilizing SARs and their inter...
Design and Ethical Concerns in Robotic Adjunct Therapy Protocols for Children with Autism
Procedia Computer Science, 2014
Children born with disabilities are now under the spotlight where researchers worldwide are exploring the applications of robots for possible intervention methods. However, these children are in the most 'vulnerable' group of research subjects and ethical considerations are paramount towards research developments in human-robot interaction (HRI) that are accurate and responsible. Based on prior and current experiences, this paper focuses specifically on the clinical applications of robots in therapy for children with autism. A set of procedures is proposed to serve as guidelines to researchers who are looking into this research area. Considerations of the technical and ethical context, plus the role of multidisciplinary teams from engineering and medical backgrounds need to come together to fulfill the research aim. Then only the increased validity of robotic applications in therapeutic context for autism intervention can be established.
2013
This paper reviews the use of socially interactive robots to assist in the therapy of children with autism. The extent to which the robots were successful in helping the children in their social, emotional, and communication deficits was investigated. Child-robot interactions were scrutinized with respect to the different target behaviours that are to be elicited from a child during therapy. These behaviours were thoroughly examined with respect to a child's development needs. Most importantly, experimental data from the surveyed works were extracted and analyzed in terms of the target behaviours and how each robot was used during a therapy session to achieve these behaviours.
Robotics in Autism Intervention
International Journal of Recent Contributions from Engineering, Science & IT (iJES)
Autism Spectrum Disorders is a group of lifelong disabilities that affect people's communication and underlying social messages. The state of the art is an indication of how technology, and in particular robotics, can offer promising tools to enhance research and treatment in ASD. This review represents an attempt to investigate how robot-assistive therapy strategies help children with autism increase social interaction and to imitate, recognize and express feelings. One of the major questions of this paper was if the robots appear to be effective means in assistive therapies. The research team of this paper concluded that robots are discovered to be a predictable and secure environment for ASD children and to be quite efficient in the intervention process. In addition to the above-mentioned, this project also broaches ethical issues that should be taken into consideration by the researchers and therapists during human-robot interplay.
The clinical use of robots for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A critical review
Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 2012
We examined peer-reviewed studies in order to understand the current status of empirically-based evidence on the clinical applications of robots in the diagnosis and treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Studies are organized into four broad categories: (a) the response of individuals with ASD to robots or robot-like behavior in comparison to human behavior, (b) the use of robots to elicit behaviors, (c) the use of robots to model, teach, and/or practice a skill, and (d) the use of robots to provide feedback on performance. A critical review of the literature revealed that most of the findings are exploratory and have methodological limitations that make it difficult to draw firm conclusions about the clinical utility of robots. Finally, we outline the research needed to determine the incremental validity of this technique.
Robot-assisted therapy for children with autism spectrum disorders
Refereed Workshop Conference on Interaction Design for Children: Children with Special Needs (IDC), 2008
Our research is the exploration of the social effects of human-robot interaction (HRI) on children with ASD, a population that has deficiencies in many types of social behavior. Computers and robots have been shown to be a catalyst for increased social interaction in children with ASD, yet that effect requires further study to be effectively employed as a therapeutic intervention.
Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 2020
The present work is a collaborative research aimed at testing the effectiveness of the robot-assisted intervention administered in real clinical settings by real educators. Social robots dedicated to assisting persons with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are rarely used in clinics. In a collaborative effort to bridge the gap between innovation in research and clinical practice, a team of engineers, clinicians and researchers working in the field of psychology developed and tested a robot-assisted educational intervention for children with low-functioning ASD (N = 20) A total of 14 lessons targeting requesting and turn-taking were elaborated, based on the Pivotal Training Method and principles of Applied Analysis of Behavior. Results showed that sensory rewards provided by the robot elicited more positive reactions than verbal praises from humans. The robot was of greatest benefit to children with a low level of disability. The educators were quite enthusiastic about children's progress in learning basic psychosocial skills from interactions with the robot. The robot nonetheless failed to act as a social mediator, as more prosocial behaviors were observed in the control condition, where instead of interacting with the robot children played with a ball. We discuss how to program robots to the distinct needs of individuals with ASD, how to harness robots' likability in order to enhance social skill learning, and how to arrive at a consensus about the standards of excellence that need to be met in interdisciplinary co-creation research. Our intuition is that robotic assistance, obviously judged as to be positive by educators, may contribute to the dissemination of innovative evidence-based practice for individuals with ASD.