Due to the difficulties involved in evaluating autism , children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are often diagnosed quite late, reaching 5 or 6 years of age.
Thanks to a project by the University of Zagreb, this diagnosis can now be made much faster. The answer is in the robots .
Robots can be a very simple and practical stimulus for children. Both his mouth and his eyes are always in the same place and do not move. Human beings gesture, we move, we change clothes and makeup … that is, we transmit too much information at the same time and in constant change, that children find it difficult to digest.
With the presence of a robot, children do not need to think about many different types of information, but about the essence of communication. The robot does not change its appearance. It is a constant .
The initiative aims to use robots to improve the diagnosis and evaluation of children with this disorder , a process that until now has been extremely complex and subjective. But the robot is designed to help, not to replace the specialist, of course.
The aim of the project is to use a robot to collect data on, for example, the number of times repetitive behavior occurs or to carry out tests on particular behaviors such as drinking from a cup or calling the robot by name.
