ENGLAND, United Kingdom (Reuters) — Children with autism can struggle to interact with adults, as well as other children their own age. But if the child’s peer is a robot with realistic but simplified human-like features, it can help break down the social barriers the child faces, according to researchers from the University of Hertfordshire.
They’ve developed Kaspar – a child-sized humanoid to help children with autism learn social interaction and communication skills through games and songs. Over the course of ten years Kaspar has been used in long-term studies with approximately 170 autistic children.
“These children are so different from one-another, so the robot needs to be flexible enough to be adaptable,” Dr. Ben Robins told Reuters. “Different children, even if they are at the same school, have different objectives. So over the years we found how to facilitate different aspects of the needs of the children.”
In the UK there are around 700,000 people on the autism spectrum; more than 1 in 100.
While the autism spectrum is very large, children with autism can often find it hard to decipher basic human communication and emotion. In this way, Kasper’s facial features were designed purposely not to overload the child with too much information. And while some have described the robot’s appearance as ‘creepy’, Professor Kerstin Dautenhahn said this misses the point.
“Parents, but also teachers, they’re usually very enthusiastic about Kaspar once they actually see it working. Sometimes adults, they just look at Kaspar and say, ‘well, it’s not really cute is it?’ and they say ‘why don’t you make it look nicer, more sleek, maybe like a cartoon character’. And we say, no – we wanted to have a robot that’s suitable for children with autism. That means it has realistic, human-like features but very much simplified,” said Dautenhahn.
Robins added: “We need to simplify everything, but it needs to be predictable and accurate. And the predictability of it for the child’ stand point is one of the reasons they feel safe.”
Kaspar can talk, comb its hair, imitate eating, play the tambourine and even sing songs with the children.
Understanding socially acceptable physical contact can also be difficult, but Kaspar provides a safe platform for children to learn social interaction. Sensors inside Kaspar respond to touch, which trigger a pre-programmed response to encourage certain tactile behaviours in the children and discourage inappropriate ones. For example, if the child hits Kaspar or pinches its nose, it will respond by saying “Ouch, you’re hurting me” and lift its hand to its face and make a sad expression. The child is then encouraged to rectify the situation by tickling Kaspar’s foot, to which it replies “This is nice, it tickles me”.
Robins said the long-term study has been important to not only refine Kaspar’s program and appearance, but establish if the children are transferring the skills learnt into the real world.
“It’s very important for us to see what’s happened outside the context of the robot, otherwise we’re just developing a nice toy – but that’s not the point,” he said.
“It’s important to see if there’s any transference of these skills when they play with the robot into other context like in the classroom or at home; what’s happened outside the context of the robot.”
In the UK, the researchers have been working with TRACKS, an independent charity and specialist early years centre for children with autism. Teachers at TRACKS say Kaspar has been a big hit with many children and have reported children interacting for the first time in the classroom after playing with the robot.
“We were trying to teach a little boy how to eat with his peers. He usually struggled with it because of his anxiety issues,” said deputy principal Alice Lynch. “And then we started doing it with Kaspar and he really, really enjoyed feeding Kaspar, making him eat when he was hungry, things like that. And now he’s started to integrate into the classroom and eat alongside his peers. So things like that that we’ve seen are just a massive progression.”
Kaspar’s developers point out that it could never replace a teacher or therapist, but instead act as a mediator.
“The robot on its own is not a solution; it’s not a magic solution for children with autism. It’s the robot in the hand of the therapist that gives much more options,” said Robins. “It’s a starting point to use the robot as a mediator to interact with an adult or with another child.”
So far they’ve built 28 Kaspar prototypes, and are looking for investment to get the robot into every school, home or clinic that needs one.
“What we have at the moment is a research prototype but our vision is that every child in a school or a home or in a hospital could get a Kaspar if they wanted to or if it were beneficial for them,” added Dautenhahn.
Clinical trials with Kasper began in December 2016 with the Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust and the National Institute for Health Research. They’re conducting a randomised controlled trial with 40 children, scheduled to run until November 2018. This will establish the feasibility of conducting a full-scale trial of the effectiveness of using Kaspar to improve social skills in a clinical setting, and would likely involve around 250 children.
As World Autism Day on April 2nd seeks to raise awareness and understanding for the condition, the National Autistic Society said: “Many autistic people are drawn to technology, particularly the predictability it provides, which means it can be a very useful means of engaging children, and adults too.
“Early research into the possible benefits this robot can bring to education settings has been promising, which reflects our understanding that some children on the autism spectrum find Kasper’s relatively simple facial expressions and predictability useful for developing their social skills,” Carol Povey, Director of the National Autistic Society’s Centre for Autism, told Reuters via email.