Teaching Turn-Taking Skills to Children with Autism using a Parrot-Like Robot

TL;DR

This study explores using a parrot-like robot to improve turn-taking skills in children with autism through a card game therapy, showing promising effects and therapist approval.

Contribution

It introduces a novel robot-assisted turn-taking therapy for children with autism and evaluates its effectiveness compared to traditional methods.

Findings

Robot interaction had larger effect sizes than human trainer in most variables.

Therapists found the robot appealing and beneficial for therapy.

The intervention showed positive impact on turn-taking skills.

Abstract

Robot Assisted Therapy is a new paradigm in many therapies such as the therapy of children with autism spectrum disorder. In this paper we present the use of a parrot-like robot as an assistive tool in turn taking therapy. The therapy is designed in the form of a card game between a child with autism and a therapist or the robot. The intervention was implemented in a single subject study format and the effect sizes for different turn taking variables are calculated. The results show that the child robot interaction had larger effect size than the child trainer effect size in most of the turn taking variables. Furthermore the therapist point of view on the proposed Robot Assisted Therapy is evaluated using a questionnaire. The therapist believes that the robot is appealing to children which may ease the therapy process. The therapist suggested to add other functionalities and games to let children with autism to learn more turn taking tasks and better generalize the learned tasks