Supporting autistic children’s group learning in picture book reading activity with a social robot

Autistic children have developmental disorders including social and communication deficits, attention problems, and so on. Due to these deficits, autistic children are difficult to establish social connection with humans and learn skills from social interactions, especially in group learning environment. To support autistic children in group learning, a motivating interaction environment is important. On the other hand, robot-mediated interventions have shown to be effective and more engaging. In this sense, social robots with multiple interaction modalities, might have the potential to support autistic children’s group learning. In this paper, we present the design of a robot-mediated group picture book reading activity, with the goal to contribute to autistic children’s better engagement, picture book learning, and group interaction behaviors. We evaluate and discuss the initial experimental results.