A multimodal and multilevel system for robotics treatment of autism in children

Abstract

Several studies suggest that robots can play a relevant role to address Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This paper presents a humanoid social robot-assisted behavioral system based on a therapeutic multilevel treatment protocol customized to improve eye contact, joint attention, symbolic play, and basic emotion recognition. In the system, the robot acts as a social mediator, trying to elicit specific behaviors in child, taking into account his/her multimodal signals. Statistical differences in eye contact and facial expression imitation behaviors after the use of the system are reported as preliminary results.