Robots Teach Autistic Kids Social Skills

posys writes "Wired Magazine has an article showing how the eternal patience of robots lends itself well to teaching new social skills to autistic children. 'The researchers hope that the end result is a human-like robot that can act as a "social mediator" for autistic children, a steppingstone to improved social interaction with other children and adults. "KASPAR provides autistic children with reliability and predictability. Since there are no surprises, they feel safe and secure," Robins said, adding that the purpose is not to replace human interaction and contact but to enhance it. Robins has already tested some imitation and turn-taking games with the children and his preliminary findings are positive.'"

Re:Fixing Autism?

[Drew McKinney]

This is the argument of many fully-grown autistic adults.

Remember silentmiaow on youtube? She argued that autism isn't necessarily a disability less a different way of interpreting the world [youtube.com].

URL with Pics

[jon_cooper]

Here goes some pics of the robot from their website: University of Hertfordshire [herts.ac.uk]

Re:Waste of effort

[hack slash]

As someone who has AS I'd just like to say; fuck you with a cherry on top you ingnorant small-minded arsehole. Actually that's wrong, an arsehole actually has a useful function.

Since getting internet access back in '95 I've somewhat 'come out of my shell', posting to usenet and spending hours on IRC (past dialup phonebills of £300-£500 a quarter will testament to that!) has enabled me to communicate with other people without having to do it face to face, without having to respond in the moment the other party stopped speaking, 30-60s delay on replying on IRC was fine because there was no awkward silence and wondering where to look as with face-to-face conversations, and no real time limit on usenet replies meant they could be well thought out before pressing the Post button.

The years of communication through text has helped me with being in social situations (but I still dislike them) and face-to-face communication like looking in the other persons eye, not always feeling out of place and sometimes being able to talk about other things than computers & electronics ;)

Another thing the internet has given me is a much thicker skin, you can swear blue murder at me, call me names etc. and I let it wash over me, before I'd take it deeply personally and it'd screw me up for the rest of the day and probably the next one or two.

I'll leave this post with this nice quote, don't know it originated from but seems quite apt:

Words are strange creatures. When spoken, they have emphasis and inflection. Written words, however, are inert, completely subject to interpretation, and as a result are quite often misconstrued.

Re:Waste of effort

[hack slash]

I was medically diagnosed with it over 14 years ago and agree that the fad of people who find themselves a little bit more shy/unsusual/inteligent/dislike people & social situations than the average person decide they've got it too doesn't help those who truly have it. Growing up with it and not knowing why you're really different from other kids was not an easy ride, being constantly bullied at the schools I went to because I was different, teachers not doing diddly squat to help and even one of them took me aside and told me it was my fault I was being bullied, is not something anyone should have had to put up with.