Interaction Design for Autism Spectrum Disorder Therapy - Designing a Robot-Assisted Therapy Session for Preschool Children Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a diagnosis which is becoming more common among young children and there are several types of therapies available. It has been shown that robots increase children with ASD’s willingness to interact, and some researches propose that robots can be used for therapy. This is partly due to robots being easier to understand for a child with ASD, since a robot does not get tired of listening and does not show complicated emotions while still being humanlike. This project aimed to incrementally design the interaction within a therapy session for a child with ASD, making use of a NAO robot, along with an accompanying graphical user interface (GUI). With the help of a medical expert in the area of ASD, the session has been evaluated during three design cycles. The focus of the therapy session has been on making the robot facilitate learning amongst children, in the areas of decision making and recognising feelings in others. A session with six different tasks has been created with an accompanying GUI. The session has been tested and approved by a medical expert in the field of ASD. The medical expert has also given feedback along the way and improvements have been made according to it.