Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Can Robotic Interaction Improve Joint Attention Skills?

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Although it has often been argued that clinical applications of advanced technology may hold promise for addressing impairments associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), relatively few investigations have indexed the impact of intervention and feedback approaches. This pilot study investigated the application of a novel robotic interaction system capable of administering and adjusting joint attention prompts to a small group (n = 6) of children with ASD. Across a series of four sessions, children improved in their ability to orient to prompts administered by the robotic system and continued to display strong attention toward the humanoid robot over time. The results highlight both potential benefits of robotic systems for directed intervention approaches as well as potent limitations of existing humanoid robotic platforms.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Al-Qabandi, M., Gorter, J. W., & Rosenbaum, P. (2011). Early autism detection: Are we ready for routine screening? Pediatrics, 128(1), e211–e217.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Amendah, D., Grosse, S. D., Peacock, G., & Mandell, D. S. (2011). The economic costs of autism: A review. In D. Amaral, D. Geschwind, & G. Dawson (Eds.), Autisms (pp. 1347–1360). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed. text revision). Washington, DC, USA: Author.

  • Annaz, D., Campbell, R., Coleman, M., Milne, E., & Sweetenham, J. (2012). Young children with autism spectrum disorder do not preferentially attend to biological motion. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 42, 401–408.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bekele, E., Lahiri, U., Swanson, A., Davidson, J., Warren, Z., & Sarkar, N. (2012). A step towards developing adaptive robot-mediated intervention architecture (ARIA) for children with autism. IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, 21(2), 289–299.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bekele, E., Lahiri, U., Swanson, A., Davidson, J., Warren, Z., & Sarkar, N. (2013). Pilot clinical application of an adaptive robotic system for young children with autism. Autism. (in press).

  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2012). Prevalence of autism spectrum disorders—Autism and developmental disabilities monitoring network, United States, 2008. In MMWR surveillance summaries, 61, No. SS03, 1-19.

  • Constantino, J., & Gruber, C. (2002). The social responsiveness scale. Los Angeles: Western Psychological Services.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dautenhahn, K., Werri, I., Rae, J., Dickerson, P., Stribling, P., & Ogden, B. (2002). Roboic playmates: Analysing interactive compentencies of children with autism playing with a mobile robot. In K. Dautenhahn, A. Bond, L. Canamero, et al. (Eds.), Socially intelligent agents creating relationships with computers and robots (pp. 117–124). The Netherlands: Kluwer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Dawson, G., Rogers, S., Munson, J., Smith, M., Winter, J., Greenson, J., et al. (2010). Randomized, controlled trial of an intervention for toddlers with autism: The early start Denver model. Pediatrics, 125(1), e17–e23.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Diehl, J., Schmitt, L., Villano, M., & Crowell, C. (2012). The clinical use of robots for individuals with autism spectrum disorders: A critical review. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 6(1), 249–262.

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Duquette, A., Michaud, F., & Mercier, H. (2008). Exploring the use of a mobile robot as an imitation agent with children with low-functioning autism. Autonomous Robots, 24(2), 147–157.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Feil-Seifer, D., & Mataric, M. (2011). Automated detection and classification of positive vs. negative robot interactions with children with autism using distance-based features. In Proceedings of the 6th international conference (ACM/IEEE) on Human–robot interaction (pp. 323–330). New York, NY, USA: ACM Press.

  • Ganz, M. L. (2007). The lifetime distribution of the incremental societal costs of autism. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 161(4), 343–349.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gillesen, J. C., Barakova, E. I., Huskens, B. E, & Feijs, L. M. (2011). From training to robot behavior: Towards custom scenarios for robotics in training programs for ASD. Presented at the IEEE international conference on rehabilitation robotics rehab week, Zurich, Switzerland.

  • Goodwin, M. S. (2008). Enhancing and accelerating the pace of autism research and treatment. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 23(2), 125–128.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gotham, K., Pickles, A., & Lord, C. (2009). Standardizing ADOS scores for a measure of severity in autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 39(5), 693–705.

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gotham, K., Risi, S., Pickles, A., & Lord, C. (2007). The autism diagnostic observation schedule (ADOS): Revised algorithms for improved diagnostic validity. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37, 400–408.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kasari, C., Gulsrud, A. C., Wong, C., Kwon, S., & Locke, J. (2010). Randomized controlled caregiver mediated joint engagement intervention for toddlers with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 9, 1045–1056.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kasari, C., Paparella, T., Freeman, S., & Jahromi, L. B. (2008). Language outcome in autism: Randomized comparison of joint attention and play interventions. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1, 125–137.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kim, E. S., Berkovits, L. D., Bernier, E. P., Lyzberg, D., Shic, F., Paul, R., et al. (2012). Social robots as embedded reinforcers of social behavior in children with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. doi:10.1007/s10803-012-1645-2.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klin, A., Lin, D. J., Gorrindo, P., Ramsay, G., & Jones, W. (2009). Two-year-olds with autism orient to nonsocial contingencies rather than biological motion. Nature, 459(7244), 257–261.

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kozima, H., Nakagawa, C., & Yasuda, Y. (2005). Interactive robots for communication-care: A case-study in autism therapy. Presented at the IEEE international workshop on robot and human interactive communication, Nashville, TN, USA.

  • Liu, C., Conn, K., Sarkar, N., & Stone, W. (2008). Online affect detection and robot behavior adaptation for intervention of children with autism. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 24(4), 883–896.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lord, C., Risi, S., Lambrecht, L., Cook, E., Leventhal, B., DiLavore, P., et al. (2000). The autism diagnostic observation schedule-generic: A standard measure of social and communication deficits associated with spectrum of autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 30(3), 205–223.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lord, C., Rutter, M., DiLavore, P. C., & Risi, S. (1999). Autism diagnostic observation schedule (ADOS). Los Angeles, CA, USA: Western Psychological Services.

    Google Scholar 

  • Michaud, F., & Théberge-Turmel, F. (2002). Mobile robotics toys and autism: Observations of interactions. In Boston & Dordrecht (Eds.), Socially intelligent agents creating relationships with computer s and robots (pp. 125–132). London: Kluwer.

  • Mullen, E. M. (1995). Mullen scales of early learning. Circle Pines, MN, USA: American Guidance Service.

    Google Scholar 

  • Poon, K. K., Watson, L. R., Baranek, G. T., & Poe, M. D. (2011). To what extent do joint attention, imitation, and object play behaviors in infancy predict later communication and intellectual functioning in ASD? Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 42(6), 1064–1074.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Robins, B., Dautenhahn, K., & Dickerson, P. (2009). From isolation to communication: A case study evaluation of robot assisted play for children with autism with minimally expressive humanoid robot. Advances in Computer–Human Interactions, 205–211. doi:10.1109/ACHI.2009.32.

  • Rutter, M., Bailey, A., Lord, C., & Berument, S. (2003). Social communication questionnaire. Los Angeles, CA, USA: Western Psychological Services.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sasson, N. J., & Elison, J. T. (2012). Eye tracking youn children with autism. Journal of Visualized Experiments, 27(61), 3675. doi:10.3791/3675.

  • Warren, Z., McPheeters, M. L., Sathe, N., Foss-Feig, J. H., Glasser, A., & Veenstra-VanderWeele, J. (2011). A systematic review of early intensive intervention for autism spectrum disorders. Pediatrics, 127(5), e1303–e1311.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Warren, Z., Vehorn, A., Dohrmann, E., Newsom, C., & Taylor, J. L. (2012) Brief report: Service implementation and maternal distress surrounding evaluation recommendations for young children diagnosed with autism. Autism. doi:10.1177/1362361312453881.

  • Yoder, P. J., & McDuffie, A. S. (2006). Treatment of responding to and initiating joint attention. In T. Chairman & W. Stone (Eds.), Social and communication development in autism spectrum disorders: early identification, diagnosis, and intervention (pp. 88–114). New York, NY, USA: Guilford.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by in part by a grant from the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center (Hobbs Grant), the Marino Autism Research Institute, a Vanderbilt University Innovation and Discovery in Engineering and Science (IDEAS) grant, the National Science Foundation under Grant 0967170, and the National Institute of Health under Grant 1R01MH091102-01A1. Work also includes core support from NICHD (P30HD15052) and NCATS (UL1TR000445-06). We gratefully acknowledge the contribution of the parents and children who took part in this study and the support of the clinical research staff of the AUTOSLAB and the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Treatment and Research Institute for Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Pediatrics, Psychiatry and Special Education, Vanderbilt Kennedy Center/Treatment and Research Institute for Autism Spectrum Disorders, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

    Zachary E. Warren

  2. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

    Zhi Zheng, Esubalew Bekele & Lian Zhang

  3. Vanderbilt Kennedy Center/Treatment and Research Institute for Autism Spectrum Disorders, Vanderbilt University, PMB 74, 230 Appleton Place, Nashville, TN, 37203, USA

    Zachary E. Warren & Amy R. Swanson

  4. Departments of Pediatrics and Psychiatry, Vanderbilt Kennedy Center/Treatment and Research Institute for Autism Spectrum Disorders, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

    Julie A. Crittendon

  5. Department of Pediatrics, Vanderbilt Kennedy Center/Treatment and Research Institute for Autism Spectrum Disorders, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

    Amy F. Weitlauf

  6. Department of Mechanical Engineering and Computer Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

    Nilanjan Sarkar

Authors
  1. Zachary E. Warren
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Zhi Zheng
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Amy R. Swanson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Esubalew Bekele
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Lian Zhang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Julie A. Crittendon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Amy F. Weitlauf
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Nilanjan Sarkar
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zachary E. Warren.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Warren, Z.E., Zheng, Z., Swanson, A.R. et al. Can Robotic Interaction Improve Joint Attention Skills?. J Autism Dev Disord 45, 3726–3734 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-013-1918-4

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-013-1918-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation