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Can Social Interaction Skills Be Taught by a Social Agent? The Role of a Robotic Mediator in Autism Therapy

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Cognitive Technology: Instruments of Mind (CT 2001)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 2117))

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Abstract

Increasingly socially intelligent agents (software or robotic) are used in education, rehabilitation and therapy. This paper discusses the role of interactive, mobile robots as social mediators in the particular domain of autism therapy. This research is part of the project AURORA that studies how mobile robots can be used to teach children with autism basic interaction skills that are important in social interactions among humans. Results from a particular series of trials involving pairs of two children and a mobile robot are described. The results show that the scenario with pairs of children and a robot creates a very interesting social context which gives rise to a variety of different social and non-social interaction patterns, demonstrating the specific problems but also abilities of children with autism in social interactions. Future work will include a closer analysis of interactional structure in human-human and robot-human interaction. We outline a particular framework that we are investigating.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Adaptive Systems Research Group, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, AL10 9AB, UK

    Kerstin Dautenhahn & Bernard Ogden

  2. Department of Cybernetics, University of Reading, Whiteknights, PO Box 225, Reading, RG6 6AY, UK

    Iain Werry & William Harwin

Authors
  1. Iain Werry
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  2. Kerstin Dautenhahn
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  3. Bernard Ogden
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  4. William Harwin
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. The Empirical Modeling Research Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK

    Meurig Beynon

  2. Adaptive Systems Research Group, Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield Herts, AL10 9AB, UK

    Chrystopher L. Nehaniv  & Kerstin Dautenhahn  & 

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© 2001 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Werry, I., Dautenhahn, K., Ogden, B., Harwin, W. (2001). Can Social Interaction Skills Be Taught by a Social Agent? The Role of a Robotic Mediator in Autism Therapy. In: Beynon, M., Nehaniv, C.L., Dautenhahn, K. (eds) Cognitive Technology: Instruments of Mind. CT 2001. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 2117. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-44617-6_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-44617-6_6

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-42406-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-44617-0

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