research-article

Playful interaction with Teo, a Mobile Robot for Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Authors:

Andrea Bonarini,

Francesco Clasadonte,

Franca Garzotto,

Mirko Gelsomini,

Maximiliano RomeroAuthors Info & Claims

DSAI '16: Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Software Development and Technologies for Enhancing Accessibility and Fighting Info-exclusion

Pages 223 - 231

https://doi.org/10.1145/3019943.3019976

Published: 01 December 2016 Publication History

Abstract

Teo is a mobile robot designed for children with Neuro-Developmental Disorder (NDD). Teo's behavior can be remotely controlled by the caregiver or autonomously activated by effect of internal sensors or an external depth sensor. Teo has a soft body that can react to different types of touch (e.g., hugs, punches, or slaps); it can move freely on the floor and can manifest emotional reactions (through light, sound, and movement effects). Our robot can be used for therapy-driven game-based activities as well as free play. The latter involve spontaneous interaction with Teo and free exploration of its affordances, to facilitate children's familiarization with the robot and to promote socialization, positive emotions, and self-expression skills. The paper describes the design of Teo and examples of free play activities that can be performed with the robot. We also report the main results of the exploratory studies that have been performed at 2 therapeutic centers and have involved 11 children with NDD, highlighting the benefits of free play with Teo.

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Cited By

Oldfield ABroomfield KPhilamore HSewell RPowell E(2024)Softly Non-Spoken: Exploring the Potential of Soft Robotics to Support Non-Verbal CommunicationExtended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3650945(1-7)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613905.3650945
Dabiri Golchin MRipat JVerdonck M(2024)Assistive technology to facilitate children’s play: a scoping reviewDisability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology10.1080/17483107.2023.229882519:7(2419-2429)Online publication date: 2-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/17483107.2023.2298825
Georgieva-Tsaneva GAndreeva ATsvetkova PLekova ASimonska MStancheva-Popkostadinova VDimitrov GRasheva-Yordanova KKostadinova I(2023)Exploring the Potential of Social Robots for Speech and Language Therapy: A Review and Analysis of Interactive ScenariosMachines10.3390/machines1107069311:7(693)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2023
https://doi.org/10.3390/machines11070693
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DSAI '16: Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Software Development and Technologies for Enhancing Accessibility and Fighting Info-exclusion

December 2016

440 pages

ISBN:9781450347488

DOI:10.1145/3019943

Copyright © 2016 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Published: 01 December 2016

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DSAI 2016

DSAI 2016: 7th International Conference on Software Development and Technologies for Enhancing Accessibility and Fighting Info-exclusion

December 1 - 3, 2016

Vila Real, Portugal

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Overall Acceptance Rate 17 of 23 submissions, 74%

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Cited By

Oldfield ABroomfield KPhilamore HSewell RPowell E(2024)Softly Non-Spoken: Exploring the Potential of Soft Robotics to Support Non-Verbal CommunicationExtended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3650945(1-7)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
Dabiri Golchin MRipat JVerdonck M(2024)Assistive technology to facilitate children’s play: a scoping reviewDisability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology10.1080/17483107.2023.229882519:7(2419-2429)Online publication date: 2-Jan-2024
Georgieva-Tsaneva GAndreeva ATsvetkova PLekova ASimonska MStancheva-Popkostadinova VDimitrov GRasheva-Yordanova KKostadinova I(2023)Exploring the Potential of Social Robots for Speech and Language Therapy: A Review and Analysis of Interactive ScenariosMachines10.3390/machines1107069311:7(693)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2023
Kollias KMaia Marques Torres E Silva LSarigiannidis PSyriopoulou-Delli CFragulis G(2023)Implementation of Robots in Autism Spectrum Disorder Research: Diagnosis and Emotion Recognition and Expression2023 12th International Conference on Modern Circuits and Systems Technologies (MOCAST)10.1109/MOCAST57943.2023.10176588(1-4)Online publication date: 28-Jun-2023
Krpan DBooth JDamien A(2023)The positive–negative–competence (PNC) model of psychological responses to representations of robotsNature Human Behaviour10.1038/s41562-023-01705-77:11(1933-1954)Online publication date: 2-Oct-2023
Mishra R(2022)Towards adaptive and personalized robotic therapy for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder2022 10th International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction Workshops and Demos (ACIIW)10.1109/ACIIW57231.2022.10086039(1-5)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2022
Kientz JHayes GGoodwin MGelsomini MAbowd G(2022)Interactive Technologies and Autism, Second EditionundefinedOnline publication date: 18-Mar-2022
Papakostas GSidiropoulos GPapadopoulou CVrochidou EKaburlasos VPapadopoulou MHoleva VNikopoulou VDalivigkas N(2021)Social Robots in Special Education: A Systematic ReviewElectronics10.3390/electronics1012139810:12(1398)Online publication date: 10-Jun-2021
Lecciso FLevante AFabio RCaprì TLeo MCarcagnì PDistante CMazzeo PSpagnolo PPetrocchi S(2021)Emotional Expression in Children With ASD: A Pre-Study on a Two-Group Pre-Post-Test Design Comparing Robot-Based and Computer-Based TrainingFrontiers in Psychology10.3389/fpsyg.2021.67805212Online publication date: 21-Jul-2021
Kaelin VValizadeh MSalgado ZParde NKhetani M(2021)Artificial Intelligence in Rehabilitation Targeting the Participation of Children and Youth With Disabilities: Scoping ReviewJournal of Medical Internet Research10.2196/2574523:11(e25745)Online publication date: 4-Nov-2021
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