Social robotics is a new form of technology that affects a wide range of people; from young children to the elderly and everything in between. Social robotics is helping to create comfort and teaching autistic children how to handle social situations. Since the social robotics invention is so adverse in its qualifications and helpful, the social robotics tool is increasing in popularity in today’s coming age. With this advancement, imagine this: something that can create a new way of treating autistic children and it seems to be working. Autism patients can now be helped at a very young age, which may help create normal living for the many people who suffer for their future. Autism is a developmental disorder which affects around 91 people in every 10,000 (Aurora). Not only does the Social robotics decrease a patient’s autism problems but also comfort is another result from using the machine. The Icat, abido, and Robota are just some of the many different names for the social robotic “toys” that are being used. These “toys” are fun, cute, and even have their own personality. These toys are more or less a human, a friend if you will; they can teach, laugh, and play. This is a new technological advancement that is shocking users with its qualities now but most likely will be very common to all in the future.
Autism is one of the 4 four spectrum disorders that seem to be affecting more and more people each year. The causes of these disorders are not quite known and it can be detected in children as young as 18 months. This disorder has five severies in which doctors would classify their patients under. Classical Autism Asperger syndrome, Rett syndrome, childhood disintegrative disorder, and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (usually referred to as PDD-NOS). All five of these are life long, and create a problem in learning and communicating. Normally Autistic patients have difficulty in large social areas and tend to shy away from them. They have trouble communicating in social situations and in some causes they are deathly terrified of them. The prevalence of autism has definitely increased in the past few decades. The CDC found that decades ago autism was believed to occur in 4 to 5 per 10,000 children. Now the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes “estimate that three to six children out of every 1,000 will have autism. Males are four times more likely to have autism than females.”(National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes). The increase in autism has had people wondering what the deal is. People thought that vaccines were causing this increase in autism but doctors have proven that this is not the case. Therapy is a treatment for autism but is very extensive and doesn’t always work. With autism being a social disorder sometimes therapy doesn’t work because autistic children are afraid of emotions. Therapists have emotions so therefore they sometime do not help. This is why social robotics has been introduced.
Social Robotics is new from of technology that consists of robots that aid in therapeutic help with autism patients. These robots are programmed to form connections with autistic patients’ children especially. These robots interact socially with humans but are run by other humans. For example if a child was suffering from autism he or she would be sent to a therapist to try and help teach them how to act in social situations. This is where the robot comes in and a connection is formed with the child and the robot the therapist either stays in the same room to observe or is in another room. In either situation the therapist is still controlling the emotionless robot. There are many studies that have been conducted to prove the use of social robotics. Some of these studies include that Yale Study, the Aurora study and many others. In the Aurora study the ultimate goal is to create social-human interaction with autistic children, by using several different types of robots. This study touches a little bit on why technology is becoming a useful tool rather so than a therapist. The Aurora study explains why they are suggesting that robots are more effective in treating autism rather than an actual person. The uses of robots are more effective because “From the point of view of many autistic children human beings are unpredictable, and difficult to interpret (e.g. their complex facial expressions). The robot therefore serves as a much simpler, and in this way “safer” interaction partner, that can be used to teach basic interaction skills.”(AURORA). In the Yale study the team focuses on Social robotics and how they may be able to help wit autistic patients. Social robotics “considers robots to be very useful tools for studying social abilities in humans (Yale).” They are useful “Because the work involves exploration into how humans communicate and solve problems, social robotics offers insight into many domains including interface design, psychology, and neuroscience (Yale).” Both of these studies are still a work in progress but soon I think we will see a more frequent use of robots with the help of autistic patients.
Robots are a huge advancement for technology they have been a great discovery over the years. Now days they are programmed to do so much it is unbelievable. Robots are the new human basically they are helping in all sorts of ways and making lives and jobs a little easier each day. For instance robots are beginning to help in the medical fields by being a therapeutic aid to patients with autism, along with helping our elderly bunch get over their anxiety with living alone or in a different situation. A good example of a robot that helps the elderly is Paro. Paro is a designed to resemble a baby harp seal; he is white in color and has makes noises that sound just like a baby seal. He is a mental commitment robot which is a type of robot that is designed to interact with people rather that perform tasks of reproducing materials faster or reenacting something on a job like science. Paro is a robot that is used specifically for psychological, physiological, and social effects (Paro). While he was being designed the Japanese kept four different appearances of robots in mind; the humanoid robot, which resembles and actual human and is usually known for its movement and active personality just like a human. The next is the familiar animal robots that usually resemble cats, dogs, birds, mice, etc. Another type is the unfamiliar robots which are what Paro is, these are categorized as something that humans don’t really understand the behavior or quite know that actions of the animal. Lastly are the new characters and artificial animals which seem to be cartoon like or imaginative such as dragon or gremlins (Paro). All of these types of robots have been produced sometime with in the past twenty to thirty years. The new characters would be the Furby; this was introduced as if I was a new species of animal or alien. Abido and the I-cat are known to be the familiar animals. The humanoid robot would be like Robota or Jaspar, and the unfamiliar animal is our little seal Paro. All of these robots except for the furby have something in common; they all help aid in psychological disorders. As you read autism patients are helped by the humanoid robots because they resemble the human but have no emotions this helps the understand how to act in a social situations. Paro, Abido and I-cat have all been created to help people deal with loneliness or anxiety. In many cases they have been used to help give people company who are not able to have live pets in their vicinity. The paper will go into detail with each of these robots.
Paro is a mental commitment unfamiliar animal robot who resembles a white baby harp seal. The major goal of this robot is to resemble animal therapy. Animal therapy is the use of animals in creating a comforting environment. Animals can keep one psychologically happy by providing relaxation. It can help physiologically by keeping the owner fit and mobile, and lastly animals can have social effects allow other who have pets to communicate with one another. Paro comes into animal therapy because in same cases pets are not able to be in the vicinity of a person who is using or like animal theraphy. Although one may adore and love animals they are not normally allowed to be admitted into the hospital with us or invited into the nursing home with our grandparents. In many cases pets make us feel loved and at home and with out them we may feel sad and completely out of out elements but with the help of robots we can bring animals into such facilites. Paro has been brought into nursing homes and hospitals in order to help improve the health of young children and the elderly. Studies have proven that Paro has helped a great deal in one case “after playing with Paro for a time, a child who could not communicate and smile for more than six months got well, and started to talk and smile again (Paro).” This was also the case for the elderly they showed great improvement as well. The reason for these changes is because Paro is so real and life like that he is almost mistaken for a real animal. He has sensors that can trigger movements such as moving his legs, neck, and blinking. He also has feelings and can act sad, happy, or surprised (Paro). As one has Paro they will realize that he will change his behavior on behalf of his owner and will adjust to his owners sleep pattern (Paro). Paro is very useful and also very lifelike I think he will be a good thing for our society.
Aibo is a family of robots that resemble and act like a dogs. They were designed for the same reason as Paro to make animal therapy capable for places like hospitals and residential areas where pets are not allowed. These dogs can bark, sit, and come. The Aibo gets its name from the Japanese word “aibou means pal or buddy (AIBO).” NeCoro is another animal robot like Aibo but it is a cat. It has sensors that can feel touch and it reacts to sensation just like the Aibo dog does. All of these robots are similar in which they are all cute animal that help cope with peoples anxiety of being alone. Humanoid robots are just a little different then animal robots because of the way they help people. It is more likely to see autistic patients being helped by humanoid robots rather than animal robots although animal robots can be used.
On top of Robots recreating dogs, there is also scientology and new robots becoming constructed to represents cats. These cats do all the same function as dogs and seem to becoming more popular amongst the older senior citizens. The cat robot, NeCoRo, was first released in 2001 by a company called Omron Corp. Two researchers at Georgetown University, Alexander and Elena Libin believe that the robotic cat could assist and help senior citizens with major problems such as Coronary Heart Disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and more. The robotic cat has many different qualities and installments that it’s made to work as another person. Some of the features the robotic cat comes with is touch sensors on its body and sensors in its ears. Both these sensors help detect a person’s feelings or mood. The touch sensors usually respond automatically to feeling or touch and the ear sensors helps let the robot respond to its name in case its called. However, even though the robotic cat cannot walk it still embezzles other cat like features such as hissing, meowing, purring, and more. The robotic cat is a great pet and usually creates a feeling of love, happiness, joy, and positive feelings. On top of that, the robotic cat’s greater positive function is it can usually remind the patients when to take their medicine and help them keep strength in a desperate time or need.
The Robots seem to be helping out every age group. What first started as a trend among senior citizens, now the robots are being used to help teach and assist children in preschools and elementary schools. The test that was done in California by the Sony Intelligence Dynamic Laboratories have concluded that the children usually would develop feelings for the robots as if they were their parents, and eventually start to listen and obtain rules, become more friendlier, and more. The children who would be no older then a year old would be assigned a machine, QRIO and an assistant robot RUBI, these robots both teach children everyday lessons what a parent would or the daycare instructor. The children are extremely young and just learning how to adapt to certain situations and that’s where the robots come in. We adults tend to ask children if it is a toy or a human being, but they are free of such established categorization,” explains researcher Fumihide Tanaka who has been working on the project with Machine Perception Laboratory. “If intelligent-machine technology is successfully developed, a century later people will see the concept just as commonsense. This is natural as we are living in a different era now.” (Personal Robots) The children after a while tend to emulate the robot as not a parent, but more a less a friend and “somewhere in between.” With all the great advances with the robot, pretty soon the robot would be as common to people as other normal materialistic things. The robot is helping to create a better atmosphere among every different age group, and the robot is coming in all shapes, sizes, forms and more to accommodate everyone’s wants and needs.