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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.'"
Am I the only one who finds the idea of robots teaching autistic children to be social slightly ironic?
A-Bomb
For some reason, I don't think it would be any easier hearing "It's okay, it happens to lots of guys" from a robot.
It worked for Al Gore too!
(P.S. - I personally like and would vote for Gore, but everyone is always saying that he's as stiff as a robot).
Robot: "Women are not impressed by your vast array of Monty Python Quotes."
Slashdoter: "I'll bite your kneecaps off!"
Robot: "Women are not impressed by your vast array of Monty Python Quotes."
Slashdotter: "It's merely resting, pining for the fjords."
Robot: "Women are not impressed by your vast array of Monty Python Quotes."
Next week: Watch the Robot attempt to disuade the Slashdotter from using an "In Soviet Russia" joke.
Slashdoter: "In Soviet Russia, robot programs you!"
Robot: "I'm just not getting through to you, am I?"
Crow T. Trollbot
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.
Get a web developer
I for one warmly welcome our new teaching robots overlords and their socially adept autistic minions.
I've known several autistic children, and you might be surprised at what some of them know. Now, granted, there are often other developmental disorders that accompany autism, but what you interpret as reduced mental capacity might be reduced motivation. I knew one kid that had almost no verbal skills and was thought to be very unaware of his surroundings, but when the right motivators were found it was revealed that he knew the names of everyone around him and much more. (Of course, he's still most likely developmentally delayed.)
That said, I agree that the robot could be extremely helpful. For many children with autism it might turn out to be the right motivator.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
That's even worse than having a eunuch teach me about sex.
While the use of robots with children with autism has generated intense interest from a variety of research groups (mine included), one thing that the media often leaves out when reporting these stories is that these studies are still experimental. There have been no published studies to date that show long-term behavioral change following interaction trials with robots, only one case study that has looked at long-term effects of these interactions, and no studies that have shown any transfer of skills from human-robot interaction to human-human interaction.
Every time an article like this is published, my office and my colleagues are barraged with requests from individuals, families, and educators looking for the robot that will "cure" autism. While everyone working in this area has great hopes for what is possible, we don't yet have any clinical or experimental data to support any claims of effectiveness.
While I understand that while robots are infinitely patient and can help an autistic child learn on that basis, wouldn't that be counterproductive?
What I mean by that is that while robots are infinitely patient, society is not. An average person in social situations is not patient indefinitely, so why would we teach them that social situations mean perfect patience? I'm not trying to be mean-spirited or cruel sounding; I am genuinely curious as to whether or not these autistic children would grow up understanding that everyone everywhere can tolerate their quirks with infinite patience.
Then again, it might be a catch-22 in itself... Autistic child can't learn unless the teacher exudes perfect patience, human teacher can't accomplish that, child can't learn, etc.
But then again, maybe it's not so cut-and-dried as that and people could maybe work on being more patient? That would seem ideal to me.
One speaker made a very compelling argument that this "disorder" should in many instances be considered just a different mode of operation rather than a disease. One benefit of the way his brain works is that he can concentrate at a high level on the same stream of thought for hours...something that is very rare in "normally" wired people. One persons compulsive disorder is anothers passion, persistence and dedication.
Sure of someone unable to engage the world around them is going to be an absolute nightmare to raise and this research may be a means of greatly enriching these people's lives. A "cure for autism" might not be welcomed by all those afflicted however?
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
I believe current theory is that most people with autism have interconnection problems, actually. I.e., the various regions of the brain are not communicating well with each other. However, the label "autism" is often about as specific as the label "cancer". That is, I'm quite certain there are several different development disorders that have been lumped under the same label. If you go to a school for children with autism (my wife works in one), you'll notice that these children are more different from each other than the "typical" child with autism is different from a "typical" child without autism. The only things they all have in common are the conditions that were necessary for them to be labelled as having autism in the first place. Some of them have severe mental deficiencies. Others are capable of earning a Ph.D. Most of them, however, at least appear to have lower mental functioning than the typically developing child. (By "appear", I mean by an impartial observer using the tools they have available to them. Unfortunately, the impartial observer cannot always understand the way to communicate to a particular child with autism or the way to interpret such a child's actions. OTOH, a "partial" observer is subject to the typical problems associated with being partial - including a desire to believe that a child has more potential than he or she might actually have.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
OTOH, it should be noted that, more than likely, most people with autism at this convention were at the higher-functioning end of autism. For them, the autistic tendencies can confer real benefits. Most of those with autism are not necessarily so lucky.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
From an outside observer, not much. From the INSIDE, it's an un-natural mechanism we learn to allow us to relate to others. It's a weird 'dance' that is never natural -- and if you hang around us enough, you'll notice repeats in virtually the exact same way. If we don't do the 'dance', we can't get to the 'stuff' we want.
Example:
Person: "Hi Jhon! How are you?"
Me: "Been better... been worse, can't complain"
Person: "Why do you always answer that?"
Me: "Because you always ask the same question.".
Actually, I'm not as bad as others on the spectrum (socially, that is). I'm lucky. I CAN emote quite well in writing, and pick up all kinds of queues in writing that I don't from faces of vocal inflections. If you see me pause after you say something to me it's probably me 'transcribing' the 'spoken word' to a 'pad' in my head which I then read-back to myself.
I got my wife to fall for me through daily letters. Happily married 10 years + 2 kids (+ another on the way), thank you! But god bless her, I'm not an easy person to live with!
Granted, we're talking about a SPECTRUM disorder -- most of my problems are related to perception of 'natural queues'. Others on the spectrum can have a variety of problems in addition...
I wonder if this is how the Solarians started....
As someone who has AS I'd just like to say; fuck you with a cherry on top you ingnorant small-minded arsehole. Actually that's wrong, an arsehole actually has a useful function.
;)
Since getting internet access back in '95 I've somewhat 'come out of my shell', posting to usenet and spending hours on IRC (past dialup phonebills of £300-£500 a quarter will testament to that!) has enabled me to communicate with other people without having to do it face to face, without having to respond in the moment the other party stopped speaking, 30-60s delay on replying on IRC was fine because there was no awkward silence and wondering where to look as with face-to-face conversations, and no real time limit on usenet replies meant they could be well thought out before pressing the Post button.
The years of communication through text has helped me with being in social situations (but I still dislike them) and face-to-face communication like looking in the other persons eye, not always feeling out of place and sometimes being able to talk about other things than computers & electronics
Another thing the internet has given me is a much thicker skin, you can swear blue murder at me, call me names etc. and I let it wash over me, before I'd take it deeply personally and it'd screw me up for the rest of the day and probably the next one or two.
I'll leave this post with this nice quote, don't know it originated from but seems quite apt:
Words are strange creatures. When spoken, they have emphasis and inflection. Written words, however, are inert, completely subject to interpretation, and as a result are quite often misconstrued.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.