Multi-Purposeful Activities for Robot-Assisted Autism Therapy: What Works Best for Children's Social Outcomes?

This research designed and applied 24 multi-purposeful robot activities of varying social mediation levels in a multiple-session experiment with 34 children of diverse autistic characteristics in a rehabilitation setting. This paper explores what type of robot activities can meet individual needs to bring more socio-behavioral progress and juxtaposes child characteristics to identify behavioral outcomes in each activity. This knowledge would help us to respond to the question of what activity types suit specific subgroups of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Our data analysis included coding 48.5 hours of video data for a total of 14 measures to fully capture children's activity-based socio-emotional outcomes. Overall, the activities on varying social mediation levels brought more or less positive social outcomes to all children. However, children showed some different behavioral outcomes as mediated by core autism-related and age-specific characteristics. This study provides in-depth accounts of what might be helpful in designing and applying multi-purposeful activities responsive to the diverse needs of children.