Analysing Interactive Competencies of Children with Autism Playing with a Mobile Robot

This chapter discusses two analysis techniques that are being used in order to study how children with autism interact with an autonomous, mobile and ‘social’ robot in a social setting that also involves adults. A quantitative technique based on micro-behaviours is outlined. The second technique, Conversation Analysis, provides a qualitative and more detailed investigation of the sequential order, local context and social situatedness of interaction and communication competencies of children with autism. Preliminary results indicate the facilitating role of the robot and its potential to be used in autism therapy. 1. The Aurora Project Computers, virtual environments and robots (e.g. [15], [9]) are increasingly used as interactive learning environments in autism therapy. Since 1998 the Aurora project has studied the development of a mobile, autonomous and ‘social robot’ as a therapeutic tool for children with autism, see e.g. [1] for more background information. Here, the context in which robot-human interactions occur is deliberately playful and ‘social’ (involving adults). In a series of trials with 8-12 year-old autistic children we established that generally children with autism enjoy interacting with the robotic toy, and show more engaging behaviour when playing with the robot as opposed to a non-interactive toy [16], [17]. Also, the role of the robot as a social mediator was investigated in trials with pairs of autistic children. Results showed a spectrum of social and non-social play and communication that occurred in robot-child and child-