Design of robot assisted observation system for therapy and education of children with autism

  • Authors:

  • Young-Duk Kim;Jong-Wook Hong;Won-Seok Kang;Sang-Su Baek;Hyo-Shin Lee;Jinung An

  • Affiliations:

  • Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology, Daegu, Korea;Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology, Daegu, Korea;Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology, Daegu, Korea;Dept. of Early Childhood Special Education, Daegu University, Gyeongsan, Gyeongbuk, Korea;Dept. of Early Childhood Special Education, Daegu University, Gyeongsan, Gyeongbuk, Korea;Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology, Daegu, Korea

  • Venue:
  • ICSR'10 Proceedings of the Second international conference on Social robotics
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

Recently, a robot mediated therapy was given attention in support of the education and rehabilitation of children with autism. In this paper, we design and develop a robot assisted test-bed system, which provides efficient observations and analysis methods for children with autism during a free play session with robots. The test-bed system consists of a portable handheld device and a remote server. The handheld device helps a therapist to input and analyze observed results of children's play, and the remote server stores recorded video and audio information using a database program. For the robot platforms for proposed test-bed system, we use animal-type devices, which are familiar and effective for children with autism. The observed interaction between the robot and children is transmitted in real-time to the remote server. Thereafter, if it is needed, this system can provide the therapist with analyzed monitoring information for further educational treatments. For the actual service trial of the proposed system, we have implemented a specialized kindergarten for children with autism and performed several experiments. Results show that the proposed test-bed system provides not only easy and quantitative observation methods, but also efficient analyses for monitoring positive interactions between children with autism and robot systems.