Robots Teach Autistic Kids Social Skills

posys writes "Wired Magazine has an article showing how the eternal patience of robots lends itself well to teaching new social skills to autistic children. 'The researchers hope that the end result is a human-like robot that can act as a "social mediator" for autistic children, a steppingstone to improved social interaction with other children and adults. "KASPAR provides autistic children with reliability and predictability. Since there are no surprises, they feel safe and secure," Robins said, adding that the purpose is not to replace human interaction and contact but to enhance it. Robins has already tested some imitation and turn-taking games with the children and his preliminary findings are positive.'"

Comments

Re:Waste of effort

[datapharmer]

That is incredibly ignorant. I have known several autistic people and have befriended a couple and I have seen MAJOR improvements after just being patient and excusing their inappropriate reactions and eccentricities. Just recognizing when they say something funny or make an appropriate social reaction to an event and brushing off the rest without being critical led one kid I know to grow up and live a very normal life. He comes off as a little eccentric to people when they first meet him, but his autism makes him a bit obsessive which actually makes him a great worker in fields which require insane levels of concentration and attention to detail (like engineering) because he really gets into whatever he likes.

Autism does not mean stupid and does not mean broken. Autism comes in many different levels of severity and type and people with autism can be a huge asset to society, thus the time spent educating them in social graces is money well spent.