Training self-sufficiency and social skills with embodied conversational agent for children with autism

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a development disorder characterized by communication impairments and repetitive behaviors. Children with autism have problems in social interactions because of their deficits in language, communication, emotion expression and sensory impairments. The research aims at developing an autonomous embodied conversational agent (ECA) capable to enhance their abilities and overcome everyday-life limitations, training social skills and promoting self-sufficiency. The tool will be designed customized and flexible in terms of interaction channels and learning contents enough to be adopted by any children, so as addressing their own specific needs. With this purpose in mind, this technology may mitigate their everyday limitations such as a poor verbal communication and a lack of self-sufficiency.