Robots teach motor skills

At the Neag School of Education, Anjana Bhat, assistant professor of kinesiology, and Timothy Gifford, director of the Advanced Interactive Technologies Center at the Center of Health, Intervention and Prevention are employing commercially available robots to study perceptual-motor behaviors in children with autism.

Bhat, who completed her master's degree in physical therapy and a PhD in movement sciences, has focused her research on motor development, which is often slow or impaired in children with autism.  Complications in motor development can lead to poor cognitive development and difficulties in social communication, she said.  But the majority of research concerning children with autism addresses only social issues, and most people "do not pay attention to motor problems," Bhat said.  "Children learn by imitation," and if they cannot properly copy movements, they cannot learn functional skills.

Bhat and Gifford seek to address the core problem.  In their study, a robot provides an "embodied social intervention," a physical link between a child and another person, in this case, an adult trainer.  The child plays an imitation game, in which he or she synchronizes motions with those of the robot.  In this way, says Bhat, the robot becomes an intermediary for the trainer and the child, who "shares the experience of the robot with the clinician," Bhat said.  Later on, they will use instruments such as drums in rhythm training exercises.  Children will be taken through a progression from simple hand and leg movements to more complex motions requiring greater coordination.

The research is funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which was awarded to Bhat and Gifford in October.  For their grant application, they performed an initial study involving both typically developing children and children with autism (aged 4 to 9), and used a seven-inch robot.  All the robot's motions are programmed by the research team.

"We use off-the shelf robots," says Gifford. They are hoping to find "a system we can actually set out in the field." 

They have now advanced to a larger (two-feet-tall), more humanoid robot. 

In January, they will begin the rhythm training experiment in which the robot will teach musical concepts to two children who work together with the robot.  

According to Bhat, "children will be asked to perform gross motor actions involving their hands and legs and eventually progress to fine motor actions like drumming."  

In Fall 2011, the second stage of their research will begin.  It will be a randomized control experiment in which children with autism who receive their robotic intervention will be compared to another group of children with autism who receive standardized treatments. 

Similar experiments involving robots are being conducted outside UConn. Groups at locations including the University of California, San Diego, the University of Washington, the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Southern California are all exploring how children interact with robots.