New Friends: Social Robots in Therapy and Education

This special issue reflects thismultidisciplinary field of social robots in therapy and education with a broad collection of contributions, concerning technical, therapeutic, educational and ethical issues. The application of social robots in therapy and education is an emerging field. This development is fueled by the fact that these ‘new friends’ become more sophisticated, available and affordable. In recent years there has been an enormous increase of projects in which social robots are used successfully for groups with special needs, such as people with dementia, hospitalized children and children with autism. These projects demand expertise from a wide range of disciplines, like psychology, nursing, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, AI, robotics and education to meet the technical opportunities with the development of therapeutic and educational practice. The first five papers are addressing usage and relevant methodological issues concerning the use in therapy or edu-