This paper presents an investigation into the effectiveness of introducing explicit causal explanations in a child-robot interaction setting to help children with autism improve their Visual Perspective Taking (VPT) skills. A sample of ten children participated in three sessions with a social robot on different days, during which they played several games consisting of VPT tasks. In some of the sessions, the robot provided constructive feedback to the children by giving causal explanations related to VPT; other sessions were control sessions without explanations. An analysis of the children’s learning progress revealed that they improved their VPT abilities faster when the robot provided causal explanations. However, both groups ultimately reach a similar ratio of correct answers in later sessions. These findings suggest that providing causal explanations using a social robot can be effective to teach VPT to children with autism. This study paves the way for further exploring a robot’s ability to provide causal explanations in other educational scenarios.

The research presented in this paper investigates the feasibility of using humanoid robots like Kaspar as assistive tools in Speech, Language and Communication (SLC) therapy for children with learning disabilities. The study aims to answer two research questions: RQ1. Can a social robot be used to improve SLC skills of children with learning disabilities? RQ2. What is the measurable impact of interacting with a humanoid robot on children with learning disability and SLC needs? A co-creation approach was followed, three therapeutic educational games were developed and implemented on the Kaspar robot in collaboration with experienced SLC experts. Twenty children from two different special educational needs schools participated in the games in 9 sessions over a period of 3 weeks. Results showed significant improvement in participants’ SLC skills – i.e. language comprehension and production skills– over the intervention. Findings of this research affirms feasibility, suggesting that this type of robotic interaction is the right path to follow to help the children improve their SLC skills.

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often struggle with visual perspective taking (VPT) skills and the understanding that others might have viewpoints and perspectives that are different from their own; i.e., the ability to understand that two or more people looking at the same object from different positions might not see the same thing. The understanding of VPT can be improved by introducing explicit causal explanations in the interactions involving autistic children. Moreover, the use of social robots can help autistic children improve their social skills. We present a retrospective study with Kaspar, a humanoid social robot specifically designed to interact with children with ASD, which aims to define the initial protocol for a study on the effect of causal explanation in VPT provided by Kaspar. To this end, we investigate in which scenarios causal explanations, provided either by researchers or by Kaspar, contribute substantially to the child’s understanding of VPT. The results have helped us identify multiple interaction categories that benefit from causal explanation. We have used these results in order to define new interaction games that benefit from causal explanations. These are now progressing through usability assessment experiments.