Social skills training using multiple humanoid robots for individuals with autism spectrum conditions
Five short robot-led lessons lifted sociability scores for every autistic participant.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Takata’s team ran five daily social-skills lessons with 14 autistic participants.
Instead of people, three small humanoid robots acted as peers.
Before and after the week, staff rated each learner on a short sociability checklist.
What they found
Every participant earned higher sociability scores after the robot week.
The gains showed up on every item of the checklist.
How this fits with other research
EGranieri et al. (2020) pooled 18 trials and found robot, app, or face-to-face SST all work about the same.
The new robot data fit that big picture: tech can match human-led groups.
Marino et al. (2020) added one robot to CBT and beat standard group CBT.
Takata now shows that letting robots carry the whole lesson still helps, so the robot dose can flex from co-teacher to main teacher.
Chiviacowsky et al. (2013) saw kids talk more to adults when a dinosaur robot was in the room.
Takata widens the lens: robots can teach the skill, not just prompt it.
Why it matters
You do not need a room of typical peers to run SST. A shelf of robots can stand in when peers are absent or tired. Start small: run one 20-minute robot station this week, track initiations, and compare to your usual group baseline. If the numbers climb, you just gained a reusable peer proxy.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Social skills training (SST) is used to help individuals with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) better understand the perspectives of others and social interactions, develop empathy skills, and learn how to engage with others socially. However, many individuals with ASC cannot easily sustain high motivation and concentration during such an intervention when it is administered by humans. We developed a social skills training program using multiple humanoid robots (STUH), including an android robot, that aimed to enable individuals with ASC to become familiar with the perspectives of others and improve their sociability and empathy skills. The objective of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of STUH for these individuals. In STUH, we prepared 50 social exercises that consisted of conversations and behavioral interactions between an android robot and a simple humanoid robot. We prepared another humanoid robot that featured a cartoon-like and mechanical design, which played the role of host. In the first half-session of STUH, participants worked on the exercise from the perspective of an outsider. In the second half-session of STUH, they simulated experience by using robots as their avatars. The intervention associated with STUH was conducted for five days in total. We conducted an analysis of variance (ANOVA) featuring the intervention time point as the independent variable to examine changes in each score on the sociability index items. In total, 14 individuals with ASC participated in the study. The results of multiple comparison tests using the Bonferroni method indicated that all sociability index items improved between preintervention and follow-up. Our program enabled the participants to become familiar with the perspectives of others and improve their sociability. Given the promising results of this study, future studies featuring long-term follow-up should be conducted to draw definitive conclusions about the efficacy of our training system.
Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2023 · doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1168837