Inclusive Education for Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Use of Humanoid Robots and Virtual Agents to Alleviate Symptoms and Improve Skills, and A Pilot Study

Abstract

Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder often struggle to establish and keep positive relationships with peers and adults because of communication and social difficulties. It has been shown that humanoid robots and virtual agents can enable interventionists to maximize engagement during instruction and program for generalization. Humanoid robots have also been employed as a mediator and therapeutic support tool for children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder so that inclusive education for young children with Autism Spectrum Disorder can be achieved. Similarly, the findings obtained in many research studies carried out recently support the use of technology-aided interventions and instruction with interactive virtual agents on children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Therefore, in this study, the use of humanoid robots and virtual agents for inclusive education is reviewed and a pilot study is presented. In addition, challenges, opportunities and future research directions in this domain are provided.

Keywords

• inclusive education
• autism spectrum disorder
• humanoid robots
• virtual agents
• virtual reality environment