Evaluating the effects of humanoid robots on the story telling skills of children on the autism spectrum

The pilot study evaluated the effects of using a humanoid robot to help develop the perspective taking skills of school-age children on the autism spectrum during story retelling. The aim of this study was to develop evidence-based guidelines for teachers on the use of humanoid robots to foster narrative perspective-taking in children on the autism spectrum. The study had the following specific objectives:

• To identify and evaluate effective strategies that strengthen story retelling for children on the autism spectrum.
• To create and apply story retelling scripts for appropriate use with humanoid robots with children on the autism spectrum, during sessions facilitated by their teachers.
• To assess changes in the narrative perspective-taking ability of children on the autism spectrum, as reflected in their ability to retell a story from different perspectives following the story retelling sessions.