title: Development and evaluation of a social robot platform for therapy in autism.
abstract: People with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders) have difficulty in managing interpersonal relationships and common life social situations. A modular platform for Human Robot Interaction and Human Machine Interaction studies has been developed to manage and analyze therapeutic sessions in which subjects are driven by a psychologist through simulated social scenarios. This innovative therapeutic approach uses a humanoid robot called FACE capable of expressing and conveying emotions and empathy. Using FACE as a social interlocutor the psychologist can emulate real life scenarios where the emotional state of the interlocutor is adaptively adjusted through a semi closed loop control algorithm which uses the ASD subject's inferred "affective" state as input. Preliminary results demonstrate that the platform is well accepted by ASDs and can be consequently used as novel therapy for social skills training.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Engineering, University of Pisa, Interdepartmental Research Center E Piaggio, Italy. mazzei@di.unipi.it
authors.forename: Daniele
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mazzei
authors.forename: Nicole
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Lazzeri
authors.forename: Lucia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Billeci
authors.forename: Roberta
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Igliozzi
authors.forename: Alice
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mancini
authors.forename: Arti
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ahluwalia
authors.forename: Filippo
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Muratori
authors.forename: Danilo
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: De Rossi
mesh_terms: D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D012371:Robotics