Browsing by Author "Vanderborght, Bram"

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    How to Build a Supervised Autonomous System for Robot-Enhanced Therapy for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
    (De Gruyter, 2017-05-11) Esteban, P. G.; Baxter, Paul; Belpaeme, Tony; Billing, Erik; Cai, Haibin; Cao, Hoang-Long; Coeckelbergh, Mark; Costescu, Cristina; David, Daniel; De Beir, Albert; Fang, Yingfeng; Ju, Zhaojie; Kennedy, James; Liu, Honghai; Mazel, Alexandre; Pandey, Amit; Richardson, Kathleen; Senft, Emmanuel; Thill, Serge; Van de Perre, Greet; Vanderborght, Bram; Vernon, David; Yu, Hui; Ziemke, Tom
    Robot-Assisted Therapy (RAT) has successfully been used to improve social skills in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) through remote control of the robot in so-called Wizard of Oz (WoZ) paradigms.However, there is a need to increase the autonomy of the robot both to lighten the burden on human therapists (who have to remain in control and, importantly, supervise the robot) and to provide a consistent therapeutic experience. This paper seeks to provide insight into increasing the autonomy level of social robots in therapy to move beyond WoZ. With the final aim of improved human-human social interaction for the children, this multidisciplinary research seeks to facilitate the use of social robots as tools in clinical situations by addressing the challenge of increasing robot autonomy.We introduce the clinical framework in which the developments are tested, alongside initial data obtained from patients in a first phase of the project using a WoZ set-up mimicking the targeted supervised-autonomy behaviour. We further describe the implemented system architecture capable of providing the robot with supervised autonomy.
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    Robot Enhanced Therapy for Children with Autism (DREAM): A Social Model of Autism
    (IEEE Technology and Society, 2018-03-06) Richardson, Kathleen; Coeckelbergh, Mark; Wakunuma, Kutoma; Billing, Erik; Ziemke, Tom; Gomez, P.; Vanderborght, Bram; Belpaeme, Tony
    The development of social robots for children with autism has been a growth field in the last 15 years. This paper reviews studies in robots and autism as a neurodevelopmental disorder that impacts on social-communication development and the way in which social robots could help children with autism develop social skills. Drawing on the ethics research from the EU funded DREAM project (framework 7), based on incorporating perspectives in our way of understanding autism from autism advocacy, parents of children with autism, medical practitioners in the field, and adults with Asperger’s, we propose that we start from the position that the child with autism is a social being with difficulties in expressing this sociality, and then following on from this core assumption, exploring how social robots can help children with autism develop social skills. We challenge the view that children with autism prefer technologies over other kinds of activities (exploring nature or the arts), engagements with other living beings (animals) or lack interest in human relationship (particularly close caregivers).
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    Robot Enhanced Therapy for Children with Autism Disorders: Measuring Ethical Acceptability
    (IEEE, 2016-06-07) Peca, Andreea; Coeckelbergh, Mark; Simut, Ramona; Costescu, Cristina; Pintea, Sebastian; David, Daniel; Vanderborght, Bram
    Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction, as well as restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities [1]. The prevalence of autism is estimated at 1-2 per 1000, and close to 6 per 1000 for ASD [23]. ASD is a lifelong disorder, and many individuals need high levels of support throughout their lives [28]. Even though no cure has been found, early intervention is critical for a positive long-term outcome. The interventions that have received the most empirical support are early behavioral interventions. They usually involve one-on-one training provided by a therapist, in which children are trained to respond to environmental changes, understand and use language, and interact appropriately with others in social settings [8].
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    Sensing-Enhanced Therapy System for Assessing Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Feasibility Study
    (IEEE, 2018-10-23) Cai, Haibin; Fang, Yingfeng; Ju, Zhaojie; Costescu, Cristina; David, Daniel; Billing, Erik; Ziemke, Tom; Thill, Serge; Belpaeme, Tony; Vanderborght, Bram; Vernon, David; Richardson, Kathleen
    It is evident that recently reported robot-assisted therapy systems for assessment of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) lack autonomous interaction abilities and require significant human resources. This paper proposes a sensing system that automatically extracts and fuses sensory features, such as body motion features, facial expressions, and gaze features, further assessing the children behaviors by mapping them to therapist-specified behavioral classes. Experimental results show that the developed system has a capability of interpreting characteristic data of children with ASD, thus has the potential to increase the autonomy of robots under the supervision of a therapist and enhance the quality of the digital description of children with ASD. The research outcomes pave the way to a feasible machine-assisted system for their behavior assessment.