Authors:
Vinícius Silva
1
;
Filomena Soares
1
;
João Sena Esteves
1
;
Ana P. Pereira
2
;
Celina P. Leão
1
and
Sandra Queirós
1
Affiliations:
1
Centro Algoritmi, Engineering School, University of Minho, 4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal
;
2
Research Centre on Education, Institute of Education, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal
Keyword(s):
Human Robot Interaction, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Playware Technology.
Abstract:
The comprehension of the emotional state of others is paramount for a successful human interaction. Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have impairments in social communication and, consequently, they have difficulties to interpret others’ state of mind. In order to tackle this issue, researchers have been proposing the use of technological solutions to assist children with ASD, particularly in imitation and emotion recognition tasks. Social robots and Objects with Playware Technology (OPT) have been employed as intervention tools with children with ASD. This work presents an approach combining both technologies (robots and OPT), in a hybrid way, with the goal of promoting social interaction with children with ASD. Moreover, a new OPT device was developed to be used as an add-on to the human-robot interaction with children with ASD in two emotion recognition tasks – recognize and storytelling. A pilot study was conducted with children with ASD to evaluate the proposed met
hod. All children successfully participated in the activities. Moreover, children significantly gazed longer towards the OPT during the storytelling scenario as the OPT device displayed visual cues, supporting that using a visual cue may be fundamental in helping children with ASD understand requests and tasks.
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