Abstract
Robots are being considered as a significant tool to support the therapeutic treatment of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Robot-Assisted Activities (RAA) has several advantages for i) identifying specific behavioral factors of animals that facilitate positive social behaviors of ASD children, ii) designing the psychoeducational approach to train social skills, and iii) quantitative measurement/analysis of entire scene of the therapy in order to support the therapist's work. We have developed the real-time whole body control algorithm of the humanoid robot using a doll-type input interface for non-engineering people. Then, we have conducted the preliminary experiment of RAA as post-session of Animal-Assisted Activities (AAA), and analyzed the amount of eye-contact between children and the robot during RAA. According to the preliminary experimental result, we verified that the robot can be used not only to measure the children's behavior, but also to generate the non-verbal social cues, such as eye-contact, by controlling the robot's head movement using the proposed interface.
