Autism Research

Autism Efforts Underway

The key to treating, or even preventing autism, from severely impacting the life of a young child is in conducting research that can help us diagnose children earlier and treat them more comprehensively.

Can Robots Help Children with Autism?

The question is, can robots serve as a catalyst for helping children with autism to learn social interactions and communication skills? 

Michele D. Kipke, PhD at The Saban Research Institute is partnering with Prof. Maja J. Matarić, Senior Associate Dean for Research at the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California.  The Robotics Lab at the Viterbi School is building and testing robots that are designed to help people, focusing specifically on children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Pilot Study Preparation

Robot Intervention Footage

Our video captures preparations for a pilot study researching the effectiveness of robots:

1. In the segment, entitled Bubbles, you will notice that the robot is designed to behave directly in response to the actions taken by the child.  This robot bears no resemblance to a human.
2. In the second segment, entitled Bandit, the robot is designed to behave randomly, more closely aligned with social interactions which can be unpredictable.  In addition, the robot is made to look humanoid but is purposefully kept from being too realistic.

Our belief is that there is great untapped potential for using robots as therapeutic social partners.  Our research will be designed to provide a process by which a socially-assistive robot can be developed and used for socialization therapy for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD).

More about this research