Robotic Trains as an Educational and Therapeutic Tool for Autism Spectrum Disorder Intervention

Abstract

Social robots are emerging to become useful assistive tools for use in the therapy and education of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The nature of ASD causes its symptoms and manifestations to vary widely, resulting in a variety of robotic form factors that have been developed for this application. These robots vary in structure, shape, size, color, and function. In this paper, we propose a train-based model to be used as an educational and rehabilitation tool. We explore the responses from children with ASD in a special needs centre toward a variety of toys (e.g. ball, cymbals, truck) and robots (i.e. humanoid and a robotic seal), including trains. Experiments were conducted to verify whether or not trains have any advantage over other form factors and to extract any features of interest to the children. Results show that trains represent an appealing platform to a wider range of children with ASD. Additionally, results showed that simple features that can be easily incorporated into trains play a significant role in the interactions and could serve as reward mechanism.