Kaspar the friendly robot helps autistic kids

[Guest guest]

August 25, 2010 3:23 PM PDT

Kaspar the friendly robot helps autistic kids

by Katz

Kaspar

A toy tambourine in Kaspar's lap adds to its perceived playfulness.

(Credit: University of Hertfordshire)

A playful child-size humanoid robot with a face inspired by comics and Japanese

Noh theater is being used to help teach autistic children social skills.

Kaspar (Kinesics and Synchronisation in Personal Assistant Robots), developed at

the U.K's University of Hertfordshire, has a minimally expressive face so it

doesn't " overwhelm " its play partners with social cues, thus allowing them to

individually interpret the expressions as " happy, " " neutral, " " surprised, " and

so on, as they interact with the robot toy.

Makers of the bot--which isn't new, but is currently on display to the public

through Friday at London's Science Museum--deliberately took a low-cost approach

to Kaspar so future research or commercial versions would be simple to make, and

easy to transport with on-board processing and battery power.

They built the robot for $2,500 using a child-shaped mannequin for the body's

base, off-the-shelf parts, and silicone-rubber RoboSkin with embedded tactile

sensors that detect different kinds of touch.

Kaspar

Kids usually interpret this expression as " thinking. "

(Credit: University of Hertfordshire)

Kaspar has minimal motors, only enough to simulate the most salient gestures

involved in human communication. It has eight degrees of freedom in the head and

neck and six in the arms and hands. Its blinking eyes have two axes of movement

(and video cameras), and its mouth can open and smile in varying degrees.

Kaspar is part of the Aurora Project, which is aimed at investigating the

possible use of robotic systems as therapeutic or educational tools for autistic

children. The University of Hertfordshire researchers went out of their way to

make Kaspar look like an approachable, non-threatening playmate. Since Kaspar

has mainly been tested with boys in autism therapy, for example, the scientists

gave the robot a playful boyish appearance complete with a baseball cap that

kids can remove and replace.

Kaspar generally sits on a table in a relaxed way with legs bent toward each

other (the way children often sit when playing). It then executes various

actions, repeating them when getting vocal encouragement (hiding its face until

the child says " peekaboo, " for example). Its face takes cues from the wooden

masks used in Noh theater. The masks are designed to convey a variety of facial

expressions depending on the angle at which they are viewed (the idea with

Kaspar is that the child's interaction will color his or her perception of the

robot's state, thus reinforcing ideas about appropriate social reactions).

Children are encouraged to touch Kaspar freely, an exploration meant to increase

body awareness and sense of self in children with autism, as well as decrease

the isolation those with more severe cases may experience.

Robots, it appears, may become a more common fixture in autism treatment. As we

mentioned earlier this month, soccer-playing humanoid robot Nao has been

evolving by developing " emotions " under a European project and is now being used

in the U.S. in sessions to treat autistic children.

Katz, senior editor of CNET's Crave, covers gadgets, games, and myriad

other digital distractions. As a co-host of the recently retired CNET News Daily

Podcast, she was sometimes known to channel Terry Gross and still uses her

trained " podcast voice " to bully the speech recognition software on automated

customer service lines.