Abstract:

Social robots are predictable, emotionally simple, and controllable. For these reasons, they can be employed to assist children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in learning social, emotional, and imitative skills, with the aim of transferring the acquired knowledge to interactions with human partners (Tapus et al., 2007) in real context, such as the school or the work environment.

This contribution aims to present part of a research project funded by the FIA-ONLUS Association that is currently being carried out at the University of Genoa. The objective is to test how the use of a social robot can help enhance the communication and relational skills of students with autism in pre-school, primary and secondary education. Studies in the field (e.g., Tapus et al., 2012) have shown how a social robot can more easily, compared to a human interlocutor, open a communicative channel with ASD people, acting as a mediator within a social situation.

The chosen social robots are Buddy, Nao and Navel. Social robots been largely used with people with ASD, showing benefits in terms of interaction, social and emotional skills (Shamsuddin et al., 2012; Tapus et al., 2012; Miskam et al., 2013; Cao et al., 2020).

To facilitate the generalization of skills learned in interaction with the robot, our experimental design also includes the use of virtual environments where learners can practice the skills learned in an initial social context before ultimately applying them in a real-life setting.

A preliminary phase introduces participants to the upcoming robot-assisted program in their usual learning environment with their therapist and educator. Subsequent phases are organized into short sessions where the robot asks the participant questions about various social interaction scenarios and suggests appropriate responses. In presenting different social scenarios, we will use the guiding principles of social stories (Gray, 2021), short narratives that help understand how to behave appropriately in various social situations.

Depending on the age of participants, social stories will be centered on emotion recognition (pre-school and primary education), emotions and communication (middle school) and preparation for life after school (secondary education).

After the in-person activities with the robot, we will transition to the use of virtual environments. In these environments, diverse “virtual” relational situations will be designed and implemented. A final phase replicates the previous ones in the participants’ school environment. The learning path begins with only one peer, and continue by involving two, then three, then four peers. The work, in rotation, will engage all classmates.

This framework, piloted in Pennazio et al. (2020) and currently under extensive testing, seems to be effective in developing communicative and social competences. By honing these skills, ASD young people can gain confidence and better navigate social scenarios (both real and virtual), ultimately contributing to their success in various aspects of life.

Keywords:

ASD, robotics, virtual reality, social skills.