The Socially Assistive Robot Daisy Promoting Social Inclusion of Children with ASD

摘要

Children in the autism spectrum face deficits in communication's social skills, which makes their inclusion difficult to obtain. Socially Assistive Robots, according to recent researches, have proven to be capable tools of assisting children with ASD to socialize and motivate them to participate in group activities. The research of this study explores whether Daisy Robot, a socially assistive robot, can motivate children with ASD to verbally communicate with peers of typical development by developing verbal communication skills, to that extent that those skills are generalized after the interventions while interacting with different children of typical development. Six children with ASD were observed previously, during, and after an intervention with the Daisy robot. All six managed to develop and maintain their verbal communication skills towards their social inclusion.