Continuous Focus Groups: A Longitudinal Method for Clinical HRI in Autism Care

TL;DR

This paper introduces continuous focus groups, a longitudinal qualitative method for clinical human-robot interaction research, especially in autism care, enabling ongoing dialogue and trust-building over time.

Contribution

It presents a novel longitudinal focus group approach that supports iterative stakeholder engagement in sensitive clinical HRI contexts.

Findings

Fostered trust and deeper stakeholder engagement.

Supported integration of clinical expertise into design.

Enabled ethical renegotiation of participation.

Abstract

Qualitative methods are important to use alongside quantitative methods to improve Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), yet they are often applied in static or one-off formats that cannot capture how stakeholder perspectives evolve over time. This limitation is especially evident in clinical contexts, where families and patients face heavy burdens and cannot easily participate in repeated research encounters. To address this gap, we introduce continuous focus groups, a longitudinal and co-agential method designed to sustain dialogue with assistive care professionals working with children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Three focus groups were organized across successive phases of a robot-assisted therapeutic protocol, enabling participants to revisit and refine earlier views as the intervention progressed. Results show that continuity fostered trust, supported the integration of tacit clinical expertise into design decisions, and functioned as an ethical safeguard by allowing participants to renegotiate involvement and surface new concerns. By bridging the therapeutic iteration of families, children, and clinicians with the research-design iteration of researchers and developers, continuous focus groups provide a methodological contribution that is both feasible in practice and rigorous in design. Beyond autism care, this approach offers a transferable framework for advancing qualitative research in HRI, particularly in sensitive domains where direct user participation is limited and continuity is essential.