Robotics Day @ Nova Bila – Zenica

Research has shown that autistic children are primarily attracted to technologically oriented platforms and show positive social habits when interacting with robots unless they are under pressure from their peers. Very fast development of technology, especially in the field of robotics, offers countless opportunities for innovations in dealing with people with autism.

Leading the hypothesis that autistic children have an intrinsic interest in technology, robots can be used for therapeutic purposes to trigger prosocial behavior. Robots can be programmed to respond to the behavior of children and provide an interesting visual display to encourage the desired and prosocial behavior of children. The aim is to use robots to teach a child some of the skills they would learn and imitate, and translate into interaction with people. A child can thus practice social behavior without the pressure of his peers and the environment. Research in this area is still limited and can be enhanced by the integration of well-known autism treatments such as the ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis).

Conventional therapy methods with proven efficacy often relate to a therapeutic report between a therapist and a child and often have problems with the generalization of learned behaviors outside the therapeutic framework. Robots in these sessions include elements that are genuinely interesting, appealing and encouraging to children. In addition, unlike a one-on-one session with a therapist, the introduction of robots as an intermediary in social skills learning can result in the alleviation of anxiety that some individual retreating people with autism felt and provide a less intrusive learning atmosphere.