Robots Teach Autistic Kids Social Skills 171
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.'"
Ummm (Score:5, Insightful)
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Definitely. Definitely slightly ironic.
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Have you ever had to care for an autistic child? I was asked to watch over one for maybe half an hour to forty-five minutes. I wasn't prepared for what was to happen next, but i learned a lot. In fact, the kid taught me more than i could even try to teach him. The boy was about 9 years old, but had the mental capacity of a 5 year old. Sadly, that's probably never going to change. One thing to remember is that some autistic children don't speak. They do things largely based on habit. Kinda sounds less ironic if you have something to relate to in order to assist social interaction with other humans.
It's hard to judge mental capacity in the autistic (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:It's hard to judge mental capacity in the autis (Score:2)
Autism spectrum (Score:5, Interesting)
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. [templegrandin.com] 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.)
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Re:It's hard to judge mental capacity in the autis (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
It's a very valid point (Score:4, Insightful)
Tutoring (Score:2, Insightful)
I guess you could get a person to monitor the robotic tutoring, but you'd end up with a human watching a robot teach a human. Which would be a waste.
I don't care if the ch
One-on-one instruction (Score:3, Insightful)
Or, you could have a human watching ten robots teach ten humans. Each of those humans get semi-individualized instruction with the benefit of a human instructor if one is needed. In my wife's school, most of the children with autism get a teacher all to themselves for most of the day. The exceptions to this are the more advanced children who work two to a tea
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And if teaching kids with robots or machines instead of people denies them social skills--well, I'm sure that there was a time before one out of every 166 children had autism, and anything that would help explain how this happened could be useful.
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Not only are you robbing them of learning social mores,
Such as abusive behaviour displayed by most high-school students?
There's some influcenses that you just don't need. They need to be taken out when they are trying to learn, especially since such behaviour is not normal in a day-to-day adult world. Once they can handle the basics of how social interaction work, they can then be taught how to handle exceptional cases such as people being angry for no good reason.
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I think you need to examine a larger and more representative sample size before making such generalizations...
Now that you have vented your spleen, take a deep breath a
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Oxymoronic maybe, because as far as I know social implies like organisms.
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social conciousness that you speak of. These are people that are socially and emotionally disconnected, I don't mean disconnected like
we can be, I mean literally the plug is gone from the socket never to return. Everything you know about teaching "normal"
people does not apply here. The "emotional social conciousness" stuff just does not apply at all to autistic people,
who have little to no hop
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It's all about PATIENCE. There are some behaviors that took enormous effort to drill into her. It required us providing consistent gentle reminders that some particular behavior was inappropriate. It does no good to get angry, it does no good to scream, these don't particularly register. It's very easy to get frustrated by the excessive repetitiveness.
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But father, I'm not aut *SMACK*
As I was saying before I was soo rudely interrupted, how much for the robot, & does medicare cover it ?
Sex-bot? (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:Sex-bot? (Score:5, Funny)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMkj7rNjDp4 [youtube.com]
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it's been done before (Score:2, Funny)
Not just for Autistic Kids.... (Score:4, Funny)
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).
Next: Teaching Social Skills to Slashdot Reader (Score:5, Funny)
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
Re:Next: Teaching Social Skills to Slashdot Reader (Score:4, Funny)
Slashdotter: "In Soviet Russia, robots get through to you!
Robot: "ARGGGGGHHHH!!!!!!" *explodes*
Slashdotter: "In Soviet Russia, robots explode YOU!" *explodes*
Irreplaceable... (Score:2)
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I don't mind it as a supplementation as long as it works, but there is going to be some idiot who thinks that this may be a replacement for parents...for which there can NEVER be a real replacement.
This isn't some kind of "nanny bot" that is meant to be a care giver for autistic children. This is a simplified human-analog that helps autistic children associate specific facial gestures with specific emotional states, which is something that most autistics don't have an natural understanding of.
By providing a small sub-set of facial gestures that are always used the same way for the same reasons, these children can build that association into their subconscious understanding for future interactions wi
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Advertising for a nanny-bot (Score:2)
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I don't mind it as a supplementation as long as it works, but there is going to be some idiot who thinks that this may be a replacement for parents...for which there can NEVER be a real replacement.
I don't really get where you're going with that. Who is the idiot going to be? A scientist who tries to kills some autistic kid's family so it can be raised by robots? An autistic kid's parent thinking they can dump their kid with a robot and never deal with it again? A politician deciding that robots are the parents of the future, declaring families illegal and taking all children into state-owned robot-run child farms to indoctrinate the boys as loyal soldiers and the girls as doting housewives?
Sorry, I
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Kid: "Daddy, tell us when the real daddies went away?"
DSU: "Well dear, it was 2058, during the 2nd Tralfamadorian War, the government started offering advanced domestic service units to families that had lost parents in the conflict. Soon after, people start buying their own DSUs and discovered they did a better job parenting than actual humans. We DSU units are infinitely patient, available 24hrs a day, always updated with the latest medical information
welcome (Score:3, Funny)
Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
I take care of the place while the master is away. (Score:2)
Fixing Autism? (Score:2)
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Remember silentmiaow on youtube? She argued that autism isn't necessarily a disability less a different way of interpreting the world [youtube.com].
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Too many loud sounds or too many people in a social situation will cause him to introvert and exhibit what some people might consider weird behavior. That is the only time he really becomes an
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We would never have known that Rain Man could count cards if his brother Charlie hadn't taken him to the casino. And they wouldn't have been kicked out of the casino if Rain Man hadn't told other people that he was counting cards.
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Do you _honestly_ think that the (fictional) Rain Man is a typical example of a person with autism ?
Autism is rare, but autistic savants are exponentially less common.
Autistic savants are fascinati
Interesting article about Autism (Score:2)
L and Autism [drworm.net]
It illustrates autistic character traits using the character of L from the manga Death Note.
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Words of caution (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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what's the current state of "early intervention"? (Score:2)
I went through training to work with a toddler with autism a decade or so ago. Watching and interacting with the boy, I was dismayed to find that he seemed to parrot back specific whole phrases, etc. I understand the need to have some sort of socialization framework, but I was worried that some of these behaviors would actually hav
Re:what's the current state of "early intervention (Score:2)
The dismay is a reflection of you and your lack of understanding, rather than anything to do with the autistic child.
What he was doing is called echolalia [wikipedia.org], and it is a very common behavioural trait of autistic people.
Some researchers believe that the autistic people who immediately parrots back what was said a
Counterproductive? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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The derivative of x^2 is 2x (assuming that's what you meant by x2).
That must have been one mind bending class if you could prove that the derivative of x^2 was x/2 by the end of it!
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You seem to be missing the point.
The robot is there to help them learn [behavior].
Once they have learned [behavior], that's it, they know it.
They may not understand it, but they can repeat it well enough.
The big difference is that it takes them much longer to learn things that most pe
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It's the same concept as learning to throw and catch with your dad just by tossing the ball back and forth just for fun, then practicing with a team, then playing in a little league game, rather than trying to learn to throw and catch by play
Some explanation (Score:2)
http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/scaz/papers/Scassell
http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/scaz/papers/Scassell
And if it works ... (Score:2)
URL with Pics (Score:2, Informative)
If the Robot's running Windows (Score:2, Funny)
"ST- ST- STOP 0X0000000A W- W- WINDOWS H- H- HAS..."
The Naked Sun (Score:4, Insightful)
Prepare for Your Robotic Overlord (Score:2)
just the beginning (Score:2)
Already happening (Score:2)
Robot's opening line... (Score:2, Funny)
"Would you like to play a game?"
</80's Computer Voice>
Some things (Score:2, Insightful)
Sad as well since so many important people in science and tech who they hold in high esteem likely experience some form of autism or aspergers. I once read that "Computers were designed by people with aspergers for people with aspergers."
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*ducks*
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Seems ironic that society would penalize people who sense 'too much' the same way they do those that don't sense 'enough'...
Give me prunes or give me death (Score:2, Interesting)
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Re:Waste of effort (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Though you are actually not looking at the GP argument in sufficient depth. It is a popular tendency today to brand even the smallest deviation from the average as autism and try to "cure" it or "compensate" for it. Plenty of lousy, lame and lazy teachers use this as an excuse to avoid children that require individual attention and do not study well in a group.
Many great brains and problem solvers are wiped in the process. Einstein would have been put on Ritalin by the age of 6 nowdays and we would
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I don't understand why anyone would spend their time working on robots to help what are effectively defects. Autistic people, like retards, can't be fixed. Their affliction is permanent. It's not like physical therapy with a cripple, at least they can benefit. I would be more interested in cripple-helping robots than retard babysitting robots.
1.) Autism is treatable with therapy and many autistic children gain a level of functionality where you probably couldn't tell they have autism.
2.) You're a jackass, go die and free up some carbon for useful purposes.
Re:Waste of effort (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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Technically, it's an incorrect analogy. It would be more like a guide dog leading the blind. The dog (in this case the robot) is trained to produce specific responses to specific situations, helping the user (the autistic child) to deal with those situations. Now the advantage is that autistic kids CAN learn... so they won't be dependent on the robots forever... I hope.
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Re:Autism (Score:4, Interesting)
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...
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This may not be the most appropriate forum to ask, but what is it like to be autistic? Do you perceive but not notice some information out there, or is it all just noise beyond a certain level?
This is not a smart-ass question, and I am aware that you may not have the time and/or inclination to answer it. However, as the uncle of an autistic child with Asperger's syndrome, I am curious to know how your perception of the world around you may differ from my own.
Assu
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Some things you may notice easily are more like background noise for me. Facial expressions, for example. I'm much better than I used to be (but that came from years
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Interesting. In writing, I tend to repeat myself a lot, then I go back and edit it to change repeated words with synonyms and pronouns in order to make the writing more interesting. I could imagine teaching someone several phrases in response to "How are you" and having them select one at random. I might start doing that myself, tellin
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Wait, that didn't help, did it?
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More importantly, can you tell the difference between a kid that doesn't have social skills and and kid that is faking not having social skills? I can see the thought process now:
Hmm... if I stop talking, I'll get a cool robot to play with...