A New Revolution in Teaching Autistic Children - Using Humanlike Robots

A new experiment shows that autistic children are much more responsive toward robots than humans. If the robots are human in form, they can play the role of a tutor or even a mentor to an autistic child in their learning requirements. These robots are made to resemble humans as closely as possible. The name given to such robots used in teaching autistic children is 'socially assistive' robots.
Probably the reason behind autistic children being more responsive toward robots is their patience. Autistic children are known to be repetitive about their tasks. They do things over and over again. While that could frustrate a human, a robot can easily be programmed to handle these repetitive tasks. For example, if an autistic child needs to be taught a simple math formula, a human teacher could be irked a few failed attempts, but a robot will not.
Such robots have been designed at the University of Southern California. One robot made for the purpose of teaching autistic children in their daily tasks has gained wide renown. This robot, named as Bandit, can do a variety of tasks. He can play with the children, smile or frown at them, nod or shake his head to express assent or dissent and so on. The robot has also been equipped with some intelligent maneuvering capabilities. He can move toward the child slowly, but if the child gets intimidated and runs behind him, he will stop so as not to stress out the child further.
Bandit has become a successful experiment in working with autistic children. It has been seen that autistic children who are kept in close companionship with Bandit begin speaking more.
Another such robot developed for the special purpose of allowing autistic children to read facial expressions is Casper. This robot has a very simplistically designed face, which allows the children to check out all its nuances. Children do not feel intimidated to touch his face and explore it.
However, despite whatever these robots have been equipped to do so far, there are some things that they cannot yet do. One of the most significant shortcomings of these robots is that they cannot read the emotions playing in the children's minds. They cannot understand how a child will react to a particular situation.
An attempt is being made in this direction by Professor Nilanjan Sarkar and his team at the Vanderbilt University. His team has designed a robot-based basketball base. The game contains a hoop that moves with various rhythms, through which the children are supposed to throw differently colored balls. The activity is accompanied with different kinds of music to keep the child better engrossed. The child is made to wear several sensors that measure elements like their heart beat and the extent of their muscle twitching. This conveys to the robot whether the child is at ease or getting frustrated. Based on that, the robot changes its tempo of the game. This creates in the child a kind of cause-effect understanding. They understand what might happen if they carry out a particular action. This can give a clear insight into what working with autistic children is like.
Humanoids have attained a place of their own in the field of education for autistic children. However, there is still a lot of research to be done before these can be considered as effective guides for the children. The research still continues.