Development of a novel robot-mediated adaptive response system for joint attention task for children with autism

With Centers for Disease Control and Prevention prevalence estimates for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at 9.1 per 1,000 (1 in 110), identification and effective treatment of ASD is often characterized as a public health emergency. Emerging technology, especially robotic technology, has been shown to be appealing to these children and such interest can be harnessed to address the limitations while providing intervention services to young children with ASD. Generally the spectrum nature of autism calls for intensive, individualized intervention. However, existing robot-mediated systems tend to have limited adaptive capability that limits individualization. Our current work seeks to bridge this gap by developing a novel adaptive and individualized robot-mediated technology for children with ASD. The system is composed of a humanoid robot with its vision being augmented by several wall-mounted cameras for real-time head tracking using a distributed architecture. Based on the cues from the child's head movement, the robot intelligently adapts itself in an individualized manner to promote joint attention. The developed system is validated with two typically developing children. The validation results of the head tracker and the closed-loop nature of interaction are presented.