Children with autism and their families could greatly benefit from increased support resources. While robots are already being introduced into autism therapy and care, we propose that these robots could better understand the child’s needs and provide enriched interaction if they utilize touch. We present our plans, both completed and ongoing, for a touch-perceiving robot companion for children with autism. We established and validated touch-perception requirements for an ideal robot companion through interviews with 11 autism specialists. Currently, we are evaluating custom fabric-based tactile sensors that enable the robot to detect and identify various touch communication gestures. Finally, our robot companion will react to the child’s touches through an emotion response system that will be customizable by a therapist or caretaker.
| Author(s): | Rachael Bevill Burns and Hasti Seifi and Hyosang Lee and Katherine J. Kuchenbecker |
| Pages: | 583--585 |
| Year: | 2021 |
| Month: | March |
| Day: | 8 |
| Project(s): | |
| Bibtex Type: | Miscellaneous (misc) |
| Address: | Boulder, CO, USA |
| DOI: | 10.1145/3434074.3446352 |
| Electronic Archiving: | grant_archive |
| How Published: | Workshop paper (3 pages) presented at the HRI Pioneers Workshop |
| ISBN: | 978-1-4503-8290-8 |
| State: | Published |
BibTex
@misc{Burns21-HRIWS-Autism,
title = {A Haptic Empathetic Robot Animal for Children with Autism},
abstract = {Children with autism and their families could greatly benefit from increased support resources. While robots are already being introduced into autism therapy and care, we propose that these robots could better understand the child’s needs and provide enriched interaction if they utilize touch. We present our plans, both completed and ongoing, for a touch-perceiving robot companion for children with autism. We established and validated touch-perception requirements for an ideal robot companion through interviews with 11 autism specialists. Currently, we are evaluating custom fabric-based tactile sensors that enable the robot to detect and identify various touch communication gestures. Finally, our robot companion will react to the child’s touches through an emotion response system that will be customizable by a therapist or caretaker.},
pages = {583--585},
howpublished = {Workshop paper (3 pages) presented at the HRI Pioneers Workshop},
address = {Boulder, CO, USA},
month = mar,
year = {2021},
slug = {burns21-hriws-autism},
author = {Burns, Rachael Bevill and Seifi, Hasti and Lee, Hyosang and Kuchenbecker, Katherine J.},
month_numeric = {3}
}