UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE
		COMPUTER SCIENCE RESEARCH COLLOQUIUM

			     presents

	    "Facilitating Play between Children with Autism
		       and an Autonomous Robot"

			  Dorothee Francois
		    (Adaptive Systems Research Group,
		       University of Hertfordshie)


		      20 November 2008 (THURSDAY)

                Room B166	
		      Hatfield, College Lane Campus
			      3 - 4 pm

	      Coffee/tea and biscuits will be available.

		   Everyone is Welcome to Attend



Abstract:

This work is part of the Aurora project, an ongoing long-term project
investigating the potential use of robots to help children with autism
overcome some of their impairments in social interaction, communication
and imagination. Autism is a spectrum disorder and children with autism
have different abilities and needs. Related research has shown that
robots can play the role of a mediator for social interaction in the
context of autism. Robots can enable simple interactions, by providing
a relatively predictable environment for play to begin with.
Progressively, the complexity of the interaction can be increased.

The purpose of this work is to facilitate play between children with
autism and an autonomous robot. Children with autism have a potential
for play but often encounter obstacles to actualize this potential.
Through play, children can develop multidisciplinary skills, involving
social interaction, communication and imagination. Besides, play is a
medium for self-expression. The purpose here is to enable children with
autism to experience with a large range of play situations, ranging
from dyadic play with progressively better balanced interaction styles,
to situations of triadic play with both the robot and the experimenter.
These triadic play situations could also involve symbolic or pretend
play. This research therefore progresses along three axes: 1) the
design and the testing of a new methodological approach of how to
design, conduct and analyse robot-assisted play; 2) the design and the
experimental testing of a novel and generic computational method for 
the automatic recognition of human-robot interaction styles in real time; 
3) the demonstration of a proof-of-concept system of an adaptive robot 
responsive to different styles of interaction in human-robot interaction 
and the evaluation of its impact through a case-study with children with 
autism.


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Hertfordshire Computer Science Research Colloquium
http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~nehaniv/colloq