Robot For Autistic Children

About

KASPAR is a child-sized, socially-interactive humanoid robot developed by the Adaptive Systems Research Group at the University of Hertfordshire as a therapeutic tool to facilitate and help develop communication and social interaction skills in children with autism and other communication and social interaction impairments. Autism affects each person differently but a particularly common characteristic of children at the middle- to lower-end of the autistic spectrum is the difficulty to cope with social interaction, experiencing this as unpredictable, overwhelming and frightening, causing anxiety and often withdrawal. In addition, they find it difficult to understand and process subtleties in human expression, gestures, and body language. As a result, many autistic children retreat within themselves and become isolated. As a three-dimensional, physical object, Kaspar provides children with the opportunity for safe, physical engagement and exploration of Kaspar’ s human-like features and behaviours. Children are encouraged to interact with the robot so that they become accustomed to different human expressions and movements, to communicate with other people through the robot, and then finally to encounter people on their own having learnt the appropriate ways in which they should react to and interact with people. KASPAR’s design, together with its ability to be tailored to each child’s specific needs, ensures that it is a particularly effective tool for use in schools by teachers and therapists. Kaspar is a child-sized expressive robot with realistic, but simplified human-like features (e.g. a face with a nose, eyes, eyelids, a mouth) that uses body expressions (movements of the hand, arms and facial expressions), gestures and voice to interact with people. The robot has a head that can tilt and move from side to side, up and down.  The face is made from a silicon rubber mask that covers an aluminium frame and includes eyes fitted with video cameras that can move from side to side and up & down; eye lids that can open and shut and a mouth capable of opening, smiling as well as lowering the lips to portray a sad expression. The torso can move from side to side. In addition, Kaspar was mounted with several skin sensors on its cheeks, torso, left and right arm, back and palm of the hands and also soles of the feet. These tactile sensing capabilities allow the robot to respond autonomously when being touched. The robot can also be operated by a remote controlled keypad which can be used by the children  as an interface to interact with Kaspar, or accompanied by an adult, for example  a therapist , teacher or parent. Benefits helps to break the child’s social isolation encourages the use of non-verbal communication and verbal language mediates child-child or child-adult interaction helps children to learn fundamental social skills such as imitation and turn-taking helps children with autism manage collaborative play complements the work in the classroom (specific objectives set by the school’s curriculum) provides the opportunity for basic embodied and cognitive learning, resulting in the emerging awareness of cause and effect helps children to explore basic human emotions helps children to learn about appropriate tactile interaction Potential Applications/Markets Originally developed for children with Autism and with clear synergies to use with children experiencing specific language impairment. The intended modular design will open multiple market opportunities capable of competing with originality in the fast growing market for socially interactive robotics. Kaspar is trademarked and designs/patents are currently under review. The University is seeking an investor to develop the robot into a pre-production prototype.   If you would like to speak with Enterprise Europe Network about the University before contacting them directly please contact: Nicky Whiting – Innovation Advisor [email protected] +44(0)7921353734