Create robots to help children with autism learn social skills

Kaspar is a social robot designed to communicate with autistic children. The robot can sing, imitate the way of eating, playing the rattles drum and even combing the hair. It has the ability to act as a social guide and help children discover their own simple emotions.

"This is great, it makes me feel excited!" , Kaspar - social robot talking to four-year-old Finn when they play together at an autistic school in north London (England).

Kaspar was developed by a team at the University of Hertfordshire. Kaspar knew how to sing many familiar songs, imitate human eating behavior, play rattles and even comb his hair. The robot is designed to be the same size as a child, so it can be easily compatible when communicating with children.

The robot does all these activities during the play with autistic children to help the boy Finn get used to socializing and social interactions. If while playing together, Finn becomes too rude, Kaspar will automatically shout: "Ouch, you're hurting me".

Kaspar is playing with little Finn with autism.(Photo: Reuters).

A therapist can easily encourage children to modify their improper behavior by tickling the robot's toes. Finn is one of about 170 autistic children supported by Kaspar in schools and hospitals for the past 10 years.

However, according to the National Autistic Society, there are approximately 700,000 people with autism throughout the UK. So researchers want Kaspar to be able to help more people in the World Autism Day.

Kerstin Dautenhahn - professor of artificial intelligence at the University of Hertfordshire, told Reuters: "Our vision is to provide every child with autism in every school, house and hospital of Kaspar if they want".

Whether or not this goal is largely dependent on the results of a two-year clinical trial with the University of Hertfordshire NHS Trust. If successful, Kaspar may be allowed to work at hospitals nationwide.

Kaspar was accredited by TRACKS - an independent charity and expert in the early stages of founding a center for autistic children in Stevenage. After testing, TRACKS made many positive comments when Kaspar played with autistic children. Kaspar was designed to be very friendly and sporty with a blue cap and plaid shirt.

In sessions with autistic children, robots use simple facial expressions and body reactions. It can also use gestures, speech and automatic responses thanks to sensors in the cheeks, arms, hands, feet and body.

Many autistic children find it difficult to decipher basic information about people and emotions.

"We are trying to teach a boy to eat with his classmates. The boy struggles with that simple task very hard because the boy has trouble controlling anxiety" , Vice President Alice Lynch said.

"We started to feed Finn (boy's name) to eat with Kaspar and he really liked it. When he was hungry and had Kaspar around, Finn would eat very easily. Now Finn has started to integrate into class and eating with my friends, this is a step in a long process to help children with autism, " said Alice.

Many autistic children find it difficult to decipher basic information about people and emotions. So the researchers did not design Kaspar to come alive, but instead Kaspar was created with simple features and easy handling. Autism support groups are very impressed with this design.

Carol Povey, director of the National Autism Center, told Reuters: "Many autistic people are attracted to technology, especially the predictability that technology can provide. This shows that this is "Kaspar robot is one of a number of emerging technologies that have great potential to make a difference to people with autism."