A Long-Term Engagement with a Social Robot for Autism Therapy

Nazerke Rakhymbayeva, Aida Amirova, Anara Sandygulova, Nazerke Rakhymbayeva, Aida Amirova, Anara Sandygulova

Abstract

Social robots are increasingly being used as a mediator between a therapist and a child in autism therapy studies. In this context, most behavioural interventions are typically short-term in nature. This paper describes a long-term study that was conducted with 11 children diagnosed with either Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or ASD in co-occurrence with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). It uses a quantitative analysis based on behavioural measures, including engagement, valence, and eye gaze duration. Each child interacted with a robot on several occasions in which each therapy session was customized to a child's reaction to robot behaviours. This paper presents a set of robot behaviours that were implemented with the goal to offer a variety of activities to be suitable for diverse forms of autism. Therefore, each child experienced an individualized robot-assisted therapy that was tailored according to the therapist's knowledge and judgement. The statistical analyses showed that the proposed therapy managed to sustain children's engagement. In addition, sessions containing familiar activities kept children more engaged compared to those sessions containing unfamiliar activities. The results of the interviews with parents and therapists are discussed in terms of therapy recommendations. The paper concludes with some reflections on the current study as well as suggestions for future studies.

Keywords: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; autism spectrum disorder; human-robot interaction; robot-assisted therapy; social robots.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Copyright © 2021 Rakhymbayeva, Amirova and Sandygulova.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Experimental setup.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Engagement and valence scores, engagement, and eye gaze durations for each child on each session. Familiar sessions are labelled with circle and unfamiliar sessions are labelled with cross (x) sign. Each colour represents a child.

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