Touchscreen-Mediated Child-Robot Interactions Applied to ASD Therapy*

Abstract — Robots are finding increasing application in the domain of ASD therapy as they provide a number of ad-vantageous properties such as replicability and controllable expressivity. In this abstract we introduce a role for touch-screens that act as mediating devices in therapeutic robot-child interactions. Informed by extensive work with neurotypical children in educational contexts, an initial study using a touchscreen mediator in support of robot-assisted ASD therapy was conducted to examine the feasibility of this approach, in so doing demonstrating how this application provides a number of technical and potentially therapeutic advantages