| Using robots in therapy for children on the autism spectrum is a promising avenue for child-robot interaction, and one that has garnered significant interest from the research community. After preliminary interviews with stakeholders and evaluating music selections, twelve neurotypical children and three children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) participated in an experiment where they played the dance freeze game with a Nao robot and a researcher to four songs. There were mixed results for neurotypical children, but the trend was toward greater engagement with the researcher. Results for two of the children with ASD showed greater attention and engagement while dancing with the robot, but one child was more engaged with the researcher. There was little difference in game performance between partners or songs for either group, however, upbeat music did encourage greater movement than calm music. Using a robot in a musical game for children with ASD appears to maintain the advantages of using robots found in previous works, while adding the new dimension of music to influence the interaction. |
