A Robotic Framework to Facilitate Sensory Experiences for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

The diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in children is commonly accompanied by a diagnosis of sensory processing disorders. Abnormalities are usually reported in multiple sensory processing domains, showing a higher prevalence of unusual responses, particularly to tactile, auditory and visual stimuli. This paper discusses a novel robot-based framework designed to target sensory difficulties faced by children with ASD in a controlled setting. The setup consists of a number of sensory stations, together with two different robotic agents that navigate the stations and interact with the stimuli. These stimuli are designed to resemble real world scenarios that form a common part of one's everyday experiences. Given the strong interest of children with ASD in technology in general and robots in particular, we attempt to utilize our robotic platform to demonstrate socially acceptable responses to the stimuli in an interactive, pedagogical setting that encourages the child's social, motor and vocal skills, while providing a diverse sensory experience. A preliminary user study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of the proposed framework, with a total of 18 participants (5 with ASD and 13 typically developing) between the ages of 4 and 12 years. We derive a measure of social engagement, based on which we evaluate the effectiveness of the robots and sensory stations in order to identify key design features that can improve social engagement in children.

Keywords: Human-robot interaction; autism spectrum disorder; sensory processing disorder; social engagement; socially assistive robots.

Fig. 1.

Russell's Circumplex model of emotion [42].

Fig. 2.

Mini (L) and Romo (R).

Fig. 3.

The 20 emotional expressions of Romo.

Fig. 4.

Emotional expressions of Mini (L-R): dizzy, happy, scared, and frustrated.

Fig. 5.

Setup of the sensory stations.

Fig. 6.

The robots at sensory stations.

Fig. 7.

The setting used to conduct sessions with the participants.

Fig. 8.

A plot showing the changes in a participant’s engagement during the interaction with robots.

Fig. 9.

Plots depicting the changes in a participant’s engagement from each target behavior engagement during an interaction with robots.

Fig. 10.

ICC values obtained per participant from the 3 coders.

Fig. 11.

Average engagement index values for all participants obtained over the lengths of complete sessions.

Fig. 12.

A breakdown of overall engagement index in terms of the target behaviors.

Fig. 13.

Overall engagement index per group obtained from interactions with each robot.

Fig. 14.

Overall engagement index per group obtained from interactions with each robot.

Fig. 15.

Engagement contributions at each sensory station for the two robots and two participant groups.

Fig. 16.

A breakdown of engagement from each target behavior at each station for both participant groups during interactions with a) Romo and b) Mini.

Fig. 17

Participants a) following instructions from the robot), b) dancing with the robot, c) guiding the robot and d) waving at the robot.