Impacts of Social Robots in Education and Rehabilitation of Children with Autism in Iran

Using social robots in autism diagnosis and treatment has been increasing in recent years. In this study, our objective (as one of the pioneers in Iran) is to explore the clinical application of humanoid robots as medical assistants in the treatment/education of children with autism in order to improve their social/cognitive skills. To reach this goal, we have designed and implemented a set of therapeutic games with the following topics: a)Investigation of social robots’ acceptability and effect on improving the fine/gross movement imitation of Iranian children with autism, b)Exploring the effect of a robot-assisted music-education program on children with ASD’s socio-cognitive skills improvement (as an individual clinical intervention program), and c)The impact of humanoid robots on improving the social and cognitive skills of high-functioning autistic children (as a group clinical intervention program). The results indicated that our robots were accepted by 70 percent of the participants as a communication tool from the first interaction. We also observed improvement in joint attention and fine movement imitation skills of both the high-functioning and low-functioning subjects. It was concluded that the high-functioning children’s social skills improved due to the robot-assisted group therapy sessions, while the stereotyped behaviors of the low-functioning subjects decreased during the course of this program. Moreover, the proposed FCM algorithm for the automatic assessment of facial expression imitation tasks shows a sufficient agreement on the automatic and manual scores for the participants. The observations indicate the potential use of robotic-platforms in behavioral analysis of children during the intervention sessions.