A Pilot Usability Study of a Humanoid Avatar to Assist Therapists of ASD Children
摘要
In this article, we report on a pilot study consisting of an evaluation of the usability satisfaction and effectiveness of a preliminary telerobotic system to assist therapists of children with ASD. Unlike existing pre-programmed robotic systems, our solution beamed therapists in a humanoid robot (Pepper) to reproduce in real-time the therapist’s gestures, speech and visual feedback aiming to embody the therapist in a humanoid robot avatar and be able to perform activities during an ESDM intervention. Evaluations of our system, used by eleven therapists in internal tests during mock session without children, are reported and suggest that future use in real therapy sessions with ASD children can begin.