How Can Robots Help Students With Disabilities?

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Research has found that robots help improve educational and social skills, but much more work is needed to explore how to paste these changes and translate them into the real world.

How does AI participate in this? Technology has advanced, but so has research on how perceptions are formed, how people infer each other’s thoughts and feelings, and what constitutes emotional intelligence. These insights can be translated into algorithms that allow robots to interpret speech, gestures, and complex verbal and non-verbal cues and learn from feedback.

Danielle Kovach, a third-year special education teacher in Hopatcong, NJ, said she’ll be wondering what more research shows. “Teaching social skills to students with autism is reading facial expressions, reading body language, and collecting other people’s social cues. Can a robot imitate what we learn from humans?” Dr. Kovach is also chairman of the Extraordinary Children’s Council, an organization made up of special education professionals.

While social robots are primarily used in research studies, there is a new marketplace for classrooms and individuals. For example, luxuryAI, A Luxembourg-based company QTRobot, designed for children with autism, since the beginning of 2021 to parents; currently works only in English and French.

Aida Nazari, co-founder of LuxAI, said that children with autism interact with the robot for between 10 minutes and an hour each day, depending on their age and the level of support they need. The company has sold several hundred QTRobots, primarily to families in the United States. But many families may find that a social robot is too expensive at this point: QTRobot costs $2,000 plus a $129 monthly software subscription that includes support services.

Rachel Ricci was the first person to order a QTRobot in Canada and receive it in February 2021. His 10-year-old son, Caden, was diagnosed with autism when he was 3 years old. Caden and his parents or therapist use tablets to play games aimed at improving educational social skills such as recognizing and naming emotions. QTRobot serves as an encouraging third friend and teacher.

She uses it for 30 minutes, five days a week, and “QT helps her gain her confidence,” said Ms. Ricci. Getting the robot was a lifesaver during the pandemic, he added: While many of his classmates at a Montreal school for those with autism regressed when the school closed and therapists were unavailable, Caden was on the road. Ms. Ricci owes this to QTRobot.

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