Automatic Emotion Recognition in Children with Autism: A Systematic Literature Review.

The automatic emotion recognition domain brings new methods and technologies that might be used to enhance therapy of children with autism. The paper aims at the exploration of methods and tools used to recognize emotions in children. It presents a literature review study that was performed using a systematic approach and PRISMA methodology for reporting quantitative and qualitative results. Diverse observation channels and modalities are used in the analyzed studies, including facial expressions, prosody of speech, and physiological signals. Regarding representation models, the basic emotions are the most frequently recognized, especially happiness, fear, and sadness. Both single-channel and multichannel approaches are applied, with a preference for the first one. For multimodal recognition, early fusion was the most frequently applied. SVM and neural networks were the most popular for building classifiers. Qualitative analysis revealed important clues on participant group construction and the most common combinations of modalities and methods. All channels are reported to be prone to some disturbance, and as a result, information on a specific symptoms of emotions might be temporarily or permanently unavailable. The challenges of proper stimuli, labelling methods, and the creation of open datasets were also identified.

Developing Kaspar: A Humanoid Robot for Children with Autism.

In the late 1990s using robotic technology to assist children with Autistic Spectrum Condition (ASD) emerged as a potentially useful area of research. Since then the field of assistive robotics for children with ASD has grown considerably with many academics trialling different robots and approaches. One such robot is the humanoid robot Kaspar that was originally developed in 2005 and has continually been built upon since, taking advantage of technological developments along the way. A key principle in the development of Kaspar since its creation has been to ensure that all of the advances to the platform are driven by the requirements of the users. In this paper we discuss the development of Kaspar's design and explain the rationale behind each change to the platform. Designing and building a humanoid robot to interact with and help children with ASD is a multidisciplinary challenge that requires knowledge of the mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Child-Robot Interaction (CRI) and knowledge of ASD. The Kaspar robot has benefited from the wealth of knowledge accrued over years of experience in robot-assisted therapy for children with ASD. By showing the journey of how the Kaspar robot has developed we aim to assist others in the field develop such technologies further.

Enriching Human-Robot Interaction with Mobile App in Interventions of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Introduction: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a group of complex lifelong neurodevelopmental disorders, characterized by difficulties in social communication and stereotyped behaviours. Due to the increasing number of children with ASD, it is important to continue developing interventions as well as invent new ones. Human-robot interaction can contribute to better outcomes for these children. There are several robots such as Nao, Kaspar, ZENO, Probo, ZECA, etc. which are used in autism interventions. Many mobile and web applications are in constant growth, too. They target skills such as collaboration, social skills, language skills, social competence, and communication. Aim: To explore the usability of the humanoid robot Kaspar and a complementary app in interventions of children with ASD. Sample: 20 children with ASD, aged between 23 and 76 months old. Method: As an added intervention for this group of children, we used the robot Kaspar and its complementary app. Kaspar is a child-sized humanoid robot that uses bodily expressions, facial expressions, gestures, and pre-recorded speech to interact with a human. Results: This intervention achieved certain positive shifts in eight of the eleven measured developmental domains, such as communication functions and means, turn taking, imitation, language skills, play, attention and daily life skills. The three categories that had inconsiderable improvement are vocalization and speech, cause and effect and coping skills. Conclusion: Based on the measurements before and after the use of Kaspar and its complementary app, there is improvement, primarily in the domains of language, imitation and communication skills and attention.

Building Robota, a mini-humanoid robot for the rehabilitation of children with autism.

The Robota project constructs a series of multiple-degrees-of-freedom, doll-shaped humanoid robots, whose physical features resemble those of a human baby. The Robota robots have been applied as assistive technologies in behavioral studies with low-functioning children with autism. These studies investigate the potential of using an imitator robot to assess children's imitation ability and to teach children simple coordinated behaviors. In this article, the authors review the recent technological developments that have made the Robota robots suitable for use with children with autism. They critically appraise the main outcomes of two sets of behavioral studies conducted with Robota and discuss how these results inform future development of the Robota robots and robots in general for the rehabilitation of children with complex developmental disabilities.

Feasibility study of a randomised controlled trial to investigate the effectiveness of using a humanoid robot to improve the social skills of children with autism spectrum disorder (Kaspar RCT): a study protocol.

INTRODUCTION: Interventions using robot-assisted therapy may be beneficial for the social skills development of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD); however, randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are lacking. The present research aims to assess the feasibility of conducting an RCT evaluating the effectiveness of a social skills intervention using Kinesics and Synchronisation in Personal Assistant Robotics (Kaspar) with children with ASD. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: Forty children will be recruited. Inclusion criteria are the following: aged 5-10 years, confirmed ASD diagnosis, IQ over 70, English-language comprehension, a carer who can complete questionnaires in English and no current participation in a private social communication intervention. Children will be randomised to receive an intervention with a therapist and Kaspar, or with the therapist only. They will receive two familiarisation sessions and six treatment sessions for 8 weeks. They will be assessed at baseline, and at 10 and 22 weeks after baseline. The primary outcome of this study is to evaluate whether the predetermined feasibility criteria for a full-scale trial are met. The potential primary outcome measures for a full-scale trial are the Social Communication Questionnaire and the Social Skills Improvement System. We will conduct a preliminary economic analysis. After the study has ended, a sample of 20 participants and their families will be invited to participate in semistructured interviews to explore the feasibility and acceptability of the study's methods and intervention. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Parents/carers will provide informed consent, and children will give assent, where appropriate. Care will be taken to avoid pressure or coercion to participate. Aftercare is available from the recruiting NHS Trust, and a phased withdrawal protocol will be followed if children become excessively attached to the robot. The results of the study will be disseminated to academic audiences and non-academic stakeholders, for example, families of children with ASD, support groups, clinicians and charities. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: ISRCTN registry (ISRCTN14156001); Pre-results.

Benefits and problems of health-care robots in aged care settings: A comparison trial.

AIM: This study investigated whether multiple health-care robots could have any benefits or cause any problems in an aged care facility. METHOD: Fifty-three residents and 53 staff participated in a non-randomised controlled trial over 12 weeks. Six robots provided entertainment, communication and health-monitoring functions in staff rooms and activity lounges. These settings were compared to control settings without robots. RESULTS: There were no significant differences between groups in resident or staff outcomes, except a significant increase in job satisfaction in the control group only. The intervention group perceived the robots had more agency and experience than the control group did. Perceived agency of the robots decreased over time in both groups. Overall, we received very mixed responses with positive, neutral and negative comments. CONCLUSIONS: The robots had no major benefits or problems. Future research could give robots stronger operational roles, use more specific outcome measures, and perform cost-benefit analyses.

Robot-mediated interviews--how effective is a humanoid robot as a tool for interviewing young children?

Robots have been used in a variety of education, therapy or entertainment contexts. This paper introduces the novel application of using humanoid robots for robot-mediated interviews. An experimental study examines how children's responses towards the humanoid robot KASPAR in an interview context differ in comparison to their interaction with a human in a similar setting. Twenty-one children aged between 7 and 9 took part in this study. Each child participated in two interviews, one with an adult and one with a humanoid robot. Measures include the behavioural coding of the children's behaviour during the interviews and questionnaire data. The questions in these interviews focused on a special event that had recently taken place in the school. The results reveal that the children interacted with KASPAR very similar to how they interacted with a human interviewer. The quantitative behaviour analysis reveal that the most notable difference between the interviews with KASPAR and the human were the duration of the interviews, the eye gaze directed towards the different interviewers, and the response time of the interviewers. These results are discussed in light of future work towards developing KASPAR as an 'interviewer' for young children in application areas where a robot may have advantages over a human interviewer, e.g. in police, social services, or healthcare applications.

Investigating tactile event recognition in child-robot interaction for use in autism therapy.

The work presented in this paper is part of our investigation in the ROBOSKIN project. The project aims to develop and demonstrate a range of new robot capabilities based on robot skin tactile feedback from large areas of the robot body. The main objective of the project is to develop cognitive mechanisms exploiting tactile feedback to improve human-robot interaction capabilities. The project aims also to investigate the possible use of this technology in robot-assisted play in the context of autism therapy. This article reports progress made in investigating tactile child-robot interactions where children with autism interacted with the humanoid robot KASPAR equipped with the first prototype of skin patches, introducing a new algorithm for tactile event recognition which will enhance the observational data analysis that has been used in the past.