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Abstract: This article describes the user-centred development of play scenarios for robot assisted play, as part of the multidisciplinary IROMEC 1 [1] The work described in this article is conducted within the EU project IROMEC (Interactive Robotic Social Mediators as Companions) and was co-funded by the European Commission in the 6th Framework Program under contract IST-FP6-045356. project that develops a novel robotic toy for children with special needs. The project investigates how robotic toys can become social mediators, encouraging children with special needs to discover a range of play styles, from solitary to collaborative play (with peers, carers/teachers, parents, etc.). This article explains the developmental process of constructing relevant play scenarios for children with different special needs. Results are presented from consultation with panel of experts (therapists, teachers, parents) who advised on the play needs for the various target user groups and who helped investigate how robotic toys could be used as a play tool to assist in the children’s development. Examples from experimental investigations are provided which have informed the development of scenarios throughout the design process. We conclude by pointing out the potential benefit of this work to a variety of research projects and applications involving human–robot interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a group of complex lifelong neurodevelopmental disorders, characterized by difficulties in social communication and stereotyped behaviours. Due to the increasing number of children with ASD, it is important to continue developing interventions as well as invent new ones. Human-robot interaction can contribute to better outcomes for these children. There are several robots such as Nao, Kaspar, ZENO, Probo, ZECA, etc. which are used in autism interventions. Many mobile and web applications are in constant growth, too. They target skills such as collaboration, social skills, language skills, social competence, and communication. Aim: To explore the usability of the humanoid robot Kaspar and a complementary app in interventions of children with ASD. Sample: 20 children with ASD, aged between 23 and 76 months old. Method: As an added intervention for this group of children, we used the robot Kaspar and its complementary app. Kaspar is a child-sized humanoid robot that uses bodily expressions, facial expressions, gestures, and pre-recorded speech to interact with a human. Results: This intervention achieved certain positive shifts in eight of the eleven measured developmental domains, such as communication functions and means, turn taking, imitation, language skills, play, attention and daily life skills. The three categories that had inconsiderable improvement are vocalization and speech, cause and effect and coping skills. Conclusion: Based on the measurements before and after the use of Kaspar and its complementary app, there is improvement, primarily in the domains of language, imitation and communication skills and attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The automatic emotion recognition domain brings new methods and technologies that might be used to enhance therapy of children with autism. The paper aims at the exploration of methods and tools used to recognize emotions in children. It presents a literature review study that was performed using a systematic approach and PRISMA methodology for reporting quantitative and qualitative results. Diverse observation channels and modalities are used in the analyzed studies, including facial expressions, prosody of speech, and physiological signals. Regarding representation models, the basic emotions are the most frequently recognized, especially happiness, fear, and sadness. Both single-channel and multichannel approaches are applied, with a preference for the first one. For multimodal recognition, early fusion was the most frequently applied. SVM and neural networks were the most popular for building classifiers. Qualitative analysis revealed important clues on participant group construction and the most common combinations of modalities and methods. All channels are reported to be prone to some disturbance, and as a result, information on a specific symptoms of emotions might be temporarily or permanently unavailable. The challenges of proper stimuli, labelling methods, and the creation of open datasets were also identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robots have been used in a variety of education, therapy or entertainment contexts. This paper introduces the novel application of using humanoid robots for robot-mediated interviews. An experimental study examines how children’s responses towards the humanoid robot KASPAR in an interview context differ in comparison to their interaction with a human in a similar setting. Twenty-one children aged between 7 and 9 took part in this study. Each child participated in two interviews, one with an adult and one with a humanoid robot. Measures include the behavioural coding of the children’s behaviour during the interviews and questionnaire data. The questions in these interviews focused on a special event that had recently taken place in the school. The results reveal that the children interacted with KASPAR very similar to how they interacted with a human interviewer. The quantitative behaviour analysis reveal that the most notable difference between the interviews with KASPAR and the human were the duration of the interviews, the eye gaze directed towards the different interviewers, and the response time of the interviewers. These results are discussed in light of future work towards developing KASPAR as an ‘interviewer’ for young children in application areas where a robot may have advantages over a human interviewer, e.g. in police, social services, or healthcare applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes an exploratory study involving the design of an after-school robotics class for groups of children at the higher-functioning end of the autistic spectrum. The aim of the study was to foster collaboration among the children in the context of a class where they programmed Lego robots under the guidance of an experimenter. The class took place once a week over several months and used many different measures to assess the children’s collaborative behaviours. Detailed analysis of behavioural data is presented, and despite the small sample size, our findings suggest that the number of potentially collaborative behaviours the children displayed during a class is more strongly related to the amount of enjoyment the children derived from the classes than to the number of classes in which the children participated. Parallel-run, free-form drawing sessions conducted before certain classes gave some indication that these behavioural changes partly generalized to a different context. Additionally, many of the children in the class either found their experiences in class to be helpful in other social interactions or expected them to be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]