ELE - A Conversational Social Robot for Persons with Neuro-Developmental Disorders

Several studies explore the use of social robots in interventions for persons with cognitive disability. This paper describes ELE, a plush social robot with an elephant appearance that has been designed as a conversational companion for persons with Neuro-Developmental Disorders (NDD). ELE speaks through the live voice of a remote caregiver, enriching the communication through body movements. It is integrated with a tool for automatic gathering and analysis of interaction data that support therapists in monitoring the users during the experience with the robotic companion. The paper describes the design and technology of ELE and presents an empirical study that involved eleven persons with NDD using the robot at a local therapeutic center. We compared user engagement in two story-telling experiences, one with ELE and one with a face-to-face human speaker. According to our results, the participants were more engaged with ELE than with the human storyteller, which indicates, although tentatively, the engagement potential of conversational social robots for persons with NDD.

[1]  P. Sterkenburg,et al.  Self-controlled technologies to support skill attainment in persons with an autism spectrum disorder and/or an intellectual disability: a systematic literature review , 2015, Disability and rehabilitation. Assistive technology.

[2]  B. Robins,et al.  Does appearance matter in the interaction of children with autism with a humanoid robot , 2006 .

[3]  Giovanni Pilato,et al.  An Emotional Storyteller Robot , 2008, AAAI Spring Symposium: Emotion, Personality, and Social Behavior.

[4]  Andrea C. Pierno,et al.  Robotic movement elicits visuomotor priming in children with autism , 2008, Neuropsychologia.

[5]  Mirko Gelsomini,et al.  A huggable, mobile robot for developmental disorder interventions in a multi-modal interaction space , 2016, 2016 25th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN).

[6]  C. Heyes,et al.  Intact automatic imitation of human and robot actions in autism spectrum disorders , 2007, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[7]  Mirko Gelsomini,et al.  Playful interaction with Teo, a Mobile Robot for Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders , 2016, DSAI.

[8]  Daniel McDuff,et al.  AFFDEX SDK: A Cross-Platform Real-Time Multi-Face Expression Recognition Toolkit , 2016, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[9]  Cynthia Breazeal,et al.  The huggable: a therapeutic robotic companion for relational, affective touch , 2006, CCNC 2006. 2006 3rd IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference, 2006..

[10]  Shaobo Huang,et al.  How to train your DragonBot: Socially assistive robots for teaching children about nutrition through play , 2014, The 23rd IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication.

[11]  Lauren M. Schmitt,et al.  The Clinical Use of Robots for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Critical Review. , 2012, Research in autism spectrum disorders.

[12]  Mirko Gelsomini,et al.  Telling Stories to Robots: The Effect of Backchanneling on a Child's Storytelling * , 2017, 2017 12th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI.

[13]  S. Shamsuddin,et al.  Initial response of autistic children in human-robot interaction therapy with humanoid robot NAO , 2012, 2012 IEEE 8th International Colloquium on Signal Processing and its Applications.

[14]  Mirko Gelsomini,et al.  Polipo: a Tangible Toy for Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders , 2017, TEI.

[15]  Claire A. G. J. Huijnen,et al.  Mapping Robots to Therapy and Educational Objectives for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder , 2016, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

[16]  Mirko Gelsomini,et al.  Blending robots and full-body interaction with large screens for children with intellectual disability , 2015, IDC.

[17]  Cynthia Breazeal,et al.  Tega: A social robot , 2016, 2016 11th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI).

[18]  I. René J. A. te Boekhorst,et al.  Towards adaptive autonomous robots in autism therapy: varieties of interactions , 2003, Proceedings 2003 IEEE International Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Robotics and Automation. Computational Intelligence in Robotics and Automation for the New Millennium (Cat. No.03EX694).

[19]  Marek P. Michalowski,et al.  Keepon : A Playful Robot for Research, Therapy, and Entertainment (Original Paper) , 2009 .

[20]  E. Toms,et al.  What is user engagement? A conceptual framework for defining user engagement with technology , 2008, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[21]  Takanori Shibata,et al.  Subjective Evaluation of Seal Robot: Paro -Tabulation and Analysis of Questionnaire Results , 2002, J. Robotics Mechatronics.

[22]  B. Robins,et al.  Scenarios of robot-assisted play for children with cognitive and physical disabilities. , 2012 .

[23]  H. Kozima,et al.  Children-robot interaction: a pilot study in autism therapy. , 2007, Progress in brain research.

[24]  François Michaud,et al.  Characteristics of mobile robotic toys for children with pervasive developmental disorders , 2003, SMC'03 Conference Proceedings. 2003 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics. Conference Theme - System Security and Assurance (Cat. No.03CH37483).

[25]  Daniel J. Ricks,et al.  Trends and considerations in robot-assisted autism therapy , 2010, 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[26]  Franca Garzotto,et al.  Interactive storytelling for children , 2010, IDC.

[27]  Mirko Gelsomini,et al.  Exploring engagement with robots among persons with neurodevelopmental disorders , 2017, 2017 26th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN).

[28]  Mirko Gelsomini,et al.  Dolphin Sam: A Smart Pet for Children with Intellectual Disability , 2016, AVI.

[29]  C. Ferrara,et al.  The responsiveness of autistic children to the predictability of social and nonsocial toys , 1980, Journal of autism and developmental disorders.

[30]  D Feil-Seifer,et al.  Socially Assistive Robotics , 2011, IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine.

[31]  Marcelo H. Ang,et al.  Why Robots? A Survey on the Roles and Benefits of Social Robots in the Therapy of Children with Autism , 2013, International Journal of Social Robotics.

[32]  Cynthia Breazeal,et al.  A Motivational System for Regulating Human-Robot Interaction , 1998, AAAI/IAAI.

[33]  B. Scassellati,et al.  Robots for use in autism research. , 2012, Annual review of biomedical engineering.

[34]  Thomas Armstrong,et al.  Eye tracking of attention in the affective disorders: a meta-analytic review and synthesis. , 2012, Clinical psychology review.

[35]  Aude Billard,et al.  Robotic assistants in therapy and education of children with autism: can a small humanoid robot help encourage social interaction skills? , 2005, Universal Access in the Information Society.

[36]  Cynthia Breazeal,et al.  Design of a therapeutic robotic companion for relational, affective touch , 2005, ROMAN 2005. IEEE International Workshop on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, 2005..

[37]  Mirko Gelsomini,et al.  Puffy: A Mobile Inflatable Interactive Companion for Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorder , 2017, INTERACT.

[38]  Cynthia Breazeal,et al.  Designing a socially assistive robot for pediatric care , 2015, IDC.

[39]  K. Dautenhahn,et al.  Towards interactive robots in autism therapy: background, motivation and challenges , 2004 .