Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Are Children with ASD more Prone to Test the Intentions of the Robonova Robot Compared to a Human?

  • Published:
International Journal of Social Robotics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This study proposes an innovative device specifically designed for investigating the ability of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to test the intention of a partner in a dyadic interactive game. Twenty one children with ASD were exposed to both a contingent and a noncontingent interaction condition with either a human agent or the Robonova robot as partners. The statistical analysis indicates a strong tendency toward a significant higher frequency of testing behaviors in the robot noncontingent condition and no difference between the two groups (robot/human) for the contingent condition. Children with ASD showed significantly more eye gaze to the robot compared to the human agent in both contingent and noncontingent conditions, but no difference in affect was found. The high level of initiations recorded in all conditions suggests that the game has a high motivational value for ASD children. Further longitudinal studies should investigate if such synchronous interaction games lead to improved shared intentionality in children with ASD.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Asendorpf JB, Warkentin V, Baudonnière PM (1996) Self-awareness and other-awareness II: mirror self-recognition, social contingency awareness, and synchronic imitation. Dev Psychol 32:313–321

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Baron-Cohen S (2001) Theory of mind in normal development and autism. Prisme 34:174–183

    Google Scholar 

  3. Baron-Cohen S, Wheelwright S, Hill J, Raste Y, Plumb I (2001) The “Reading the mind in the eyes” test revised version: a study with normal adults, and adults with asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 42(2):241–251

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Billard A, Robins B, Dautenhahn K, Nadel J (2006) Building Robota, a mini-humanoid robot for the rehabilitation of children with autism. RESNA Assist Technol J 19(1):37–49

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Bird G, Leighton J, Press C, Heyes C (2007) Intact automatic imitation of human and robot actions in autism spectrum disorders. Proc Biol Sci 274:3027–3031

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Boccanfuso L, O’Kane JM (2011) CHARLIE: an adaptive robot design with hand and face tracking for use in autism therapy. Int J Social Robot 3:337–347. doi:10.1007/s12369-011-0110-2

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Charman T, Baron-Cohen S (1994) Another look at imitation in autism. Dev Psychopathol 6:403–413

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Cabibihan JJ, Javed H, Ang M Jr, Aljunied SM (2013) Why robots? A Survey on the roles and benefits of social robots for the therapy of children with autism. Int J Soc Robot 5(4):593–618. doi:10.1007/s12369-013-0202-2

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Congiu S, Schlottmann A, Ray E (2010) Unimpaired perception of causality, but impaired perception of animacy in high-functioning children with Autism. J Autism Dev Disord 40(1):39–53

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Dawson G, Adams A (1984) Imitation and social responsiveness in autistic children. J Abnorm Child Psychol 12:209–226

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Diehl JJ, Schmitt LM, Villano M, Crowell CR (2012) The clinical use of robots for individuals with autism spectrum disorders: a critical review. Res Autism Spectr Disord 6(1):249–262

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Duquette A, Michaud F, Mercier H (2007) Exploring the use of a mobile robot as an imitation agent with children with low functioning autism. Auton Robots Special Issue Soc Assist Robot 24(2):147–157

    Google Scholar 

  13. Feil-Seifer D, Matarić MJ (2005) Defining socially assistive robotics. In: 9th IEEE international conference on rehabilitation robotics, 2005 (ICORR 2005), pp 465–468

  14. Gergely G, Watson JS (1999) Early socio-emotional development: contingency perception and the social-biofeedback model. Early Soc Cognit 60:101–136

    Google Scholar 

  15. Gordon RM (1996) ‘Radical’ simulationism. In: Carruthers P, Smith PK (eds) Theories of theories of mind. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 11–21

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  16. Kozima H (2013) Cognitive granularity: a new perspective over autistic and non-autistic styles of development. Jpn Psychol Res 55(2):168–174

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Kozima H, Nakagawa C, Yasuda Y (2005) Interactive robots for communication-care: a case-study in autism therapy. In: IEEE international workshop on robots and human interactive communication

  18. Lord C, Risi S, Lambrecht L, Cook EH, Leventhal BL, DiLavore PC, Pickles A, Rutter M (2000) The autism diagnostic observation schedule–generic:a standard measure of social and communication deficits associated with the spectrum of autism. J Autism Dev Disord 30(3):205–223

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Meltzoff AN (1990) Foundations for developing a concept of self: the role of imitation in relating self to other and the value of social mirroring, social modelling, and self practice in infancy. In: Cicchetti D, Beeghly M (eds) The self in transition: infancy to childhood. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp 139–164

    Google Scholar 

  20. Meltzoff AN, Decety J (2003) What imitation tells us about social cognition: a rapprochement between developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Philos Trans R Soc B 358:491–500

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Meltzoff AN, Brooks R, Shon AP, Rao R (2010) “Social” robots are psychological agents for infants: a test of gaze following. Neural Netw 23(8–9):966–972

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Nadel J, Bottai B (1999) Imitation and touch in communication with autistic children. In: Paper presented at The Annual Touch Research Symposium, SRCD, Albuquerque

  23. Nadel J (2002) Imitation and imitation recognition: functional use in preverbal infants and nonverbal children with autism. In: Meltzoff AN, Prinz W (eds) The imitative mind: development, evolution, and brain bases. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 63–73

    Google Scholar 

  24. Nadel J (2004) Do children with autism understand imitation as intentional interaction. J Cognit Behav Ther 4(2):165–177

    Google Scholar 

  25. Pierno AC, Mari M, Lusher D, Castiello U (2008) Robotic movement elicits visuomotor priming in children with autism. Neuropsychologia 46:448–454

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Pop C, Simuţ R, Pintea S, Saldien J, Rusu A, David D, Vanderfaeillie J, Lefeber D, Vanderborght B (2013) Can the social robot Probo help children with autism to identify situation-based emotions? A series of single case experiments. Int J Human Robot 10(3):1350025

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Premack D (1990) The infant’s theory of self-propelled objects. Cognition 36:1–16

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Ricks DJ, Colton MB (2010) Trends and considerations in robot-assisted autism therapy. In: Proceedings of the IEEE international conference on robotics and automation (ICRA), pp 4354–4359

  29. Robins B, Dautenhahn K (2014) Tactile interactions with a humanoid robot: novel play scenario implementations with children with autism. Int J Soc Robot. doi:10.1007/s12369-014-0228-0

  30. Scassellati B (2005) Quantitative metrics of social response for autism diagnosis. In: Proceedings of the 14th IEEE international workshop robot human interaction and commununication (RO-MAN 2005), pp 585–590

  31. Scassellati B, Admoni H, Matarić M (2012) Robots for use in autism research. Annu Rev Biomed Eng 14:275–294

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Sevlever M, Gillis JM (2010) An examination of the state of imitation research in children with autism: Issues of definition and methodology. Res Dev Disabil 31:976–984

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Simut R, Pop C, Vanderfaeillie J, Lefeber D, Vanderborght B (2012) Trends and future of social robots for ASD therapies: potential and limits in interaction. In: International conference on innovative technologies for autism spectrum disorders (ASD): tools, trends and testimonials

  34. Sloetjes H, Wittenburg P (2008) Annotation by category: Elan and ISO DCR. In: Proceedings of the 6th international conference on language resources and evaluation (LREC 2008)

  35. Snijders JTh, Tellegen PJ, Laros JA (1989) Snijders-Oomen non-verbal intelligence test, SON-R \(5\frac{1}{2}-17\). Wolters-Noordhoff, Manual and research report. Groningen

  36. Tager-Flusberg H (1996) Current theory and research on language and communication in autism. J Autism Dev Disord 26:169–172

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Tapus A, Peca A, Aly A, Pop C, Jisa L, Pintea S, Rusu A, David D (2012) Children with autism social engagement in interaction with Nao, an imitative robot. A series of single case experiments. Interact Stud 13(3):315–347

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. Tellegen PJ, Laros JA (1993) The Snijders–Oomen nonverbal intelligence tests. General intelligence tests or tests for learning potential? In: Hamers JHM, Sijtsma K, Ruijssenaar AJJM (eds) Learning potential assessment: theoretical, methodological and practical issues. Swets & Zeitlinger B.V, Amsterdam, pp 267–283

    Google Scholar 

  39. Tiegerman E, Primavera L (1981) Object manipulation: an interactional strategy with autistic children. J Autism Dev Disord 11:427–438

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Vanderborght B, Simut R, Saldien J, Pop C, Rusu A, Pintea S, Lefeber D, David D (2012) Using the social robot probo as social story telling agent for children with ASD. Interact Stud 13(3):348–372

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Williams JHJ (2009) Copying strategies by people with autistic spectrum disorder: why only imitation leads to social cognitive development. In: Nehaniv C, Dautenhahn K (eds) Imitation and social learning in robots, humans and animals. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 199–216

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the Therapy Center-Împreună pas cu pas, the children that participated in the study and their parents, which made this study possible. This work has been supported by the CNCSIS-Bucharest, Romania project PN-II-IDPCE-2011-3-0484-Exploring Robot-assisted therapy for children with ASD.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Babeş-Bolyai University, No. 37, Republicii Street, 400015, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

    Andreea Peca & Sebastian Pintea

  2. Clinical and Life Span Psychology Department, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussel, Belgium

    Ramona Simut

  3. Robotics and Multibody Mechanics Research Group, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussel, Belgium

    Bram Vanderborght

Authors
  1. Andreea Peca
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ramona Simut
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Sebastian Pintea
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Bram Vanderborght
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Andreea Peca.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Peca, A., Simut, R., Pintea, S. et al. Are Children with ASD more Prone to Test the Intentions of the Robonova Robot Compared to a Human?. Int J of Soc Robotics 7, 629–639 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-015-0317-8

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-015-0317-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation