Designing a Robot Companion for Children with Neuro-Developmental Disorders

Abstract

The paper describes the design of a robot companion for children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders. This work; being informed by general design guidelines reported in the current literature, lessons learned from our own previous experience, meetings with a team of therapists and special educators, and a comparison with 21 well-known robots; shows that the combination of robots' design features and roles would eventually made a robot companion unique and potentially powerful with respect to existing robots for this target group.