Social Robotics for Autism

In the researchers' words

Socio-pragmatics focuses on the study of language in the context of social interactions. It explores how individuals use language to communicate effectively in specific social situations, taking into consideration the social, cultural and contextual factors that influence communication. Socio-pragmatics analyzes linguistic and nonlinguistic behaviors, such as gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, and posture, to understand intended meaning, social implications, and shared communicative norms. Children with autism often present difficulties in social-pragmatic skills. The integration of advanced technologies can play a crucial role in innovative approaches to the development of this skill. In this experimental protocol, an attempt will be made to demonstrate the effectiveness of training through the use of social robots by comparing the performance of an ASD group performing a treatment using social robots with a control group performing the same in a traditional manner.