A Study Of Auti: A Socially Assistive Robotic Toy
This thesis is an evaluation of, Auti, a new socially assistive robot designed by the author for children with autism. The study investigates whether Auti is effective at encouraging positive play interactions and reducing challenging play interactions through the application of Applied Behaviour Analysis principles. The toy aims to encourage positive play behaviours, such as gentle speaking and touching, using positive reinforcement by responding with movement. It aims to discourage challenging behaviours, such as screaming or hitting, through the removal of the reinforcing movements. The study evaluates the design by comparing how children with ASD play with a fully-interactive Auti to how they play with an active-only version which does the same movements but does not respond to the child. The study also looks at how children classify the toy and whether there is any indication that the skills they learn with Auti will be generalized to other areas. Results from 18 matched participants with confirmed ASD diagnoses indicate that the Interactive Auti does encourage positive behaviours more than the Active-only version, thus showing that it can be an effective medium for applying ABA principles of reinforcement. However, further design and research is needed around addressing challenging behaviours and increasing the range of the children’s behavioural responses.