Assistive Robot Design for Handwriting Skill Therapy of Children with Autism

The complex handwriting skill needs reasonable planning along with fine motor skill. However, most children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) possess motor deficits adversely affecting handwriting. Specifically, it can be divided into extreme finger force, unsmooth handwriting, uncoordinated fingers and other problems, addressable through intervention and robots can provide efficient and engaging ASD intervention environments for children with Autism. The work presented in this paper aims at targeted training of the skills required for writing by developing a multifunctional hand-held robot. The robot is composed of pressure sensor, optical flow sensor, led and other components and its interactive system includes finger strength training game and trajectory training game. Children with autism complete the training by engaging in emotional touch behaviors through an interactive game system. This study conducted a usability study with 8 right-handed healthy volunteers. The results showed significant improvements in finger strength control, fine motor and trajectory control. In particular, the results of trajectory training show that more visual feedback early in training can help them understand and adapt to the game more quickly. It can be expected that the system can be also applied for children with autism for motor training.