Robots helping children with motor disabilities to reach their learning potential through play: the IROMEC Project experience

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Robots helping children with motor disabilities
to reach their learning potential through play
the IROMEC Project experience
Serenella Besio, Francesca Caprino, Elena
Laudanna University of Valle DAosta, Italy
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Two projects

• IROMEC
• IROMEC (Interactive RObotic social MEdiators
• as Companions) is a three year project
  (2006-2009)
• co-funded by the European Community within the
  6th
• Framework Programme.
• (RIF. FP6-2005-IST-5 Specific targeted research
• project-IROMEC)
• ADAPTED ROBOTS PROJECT
• is an ongoing project of the University of Valle
  DAosta

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The IROMEC research consortium

• Profactor GmbH, Wien (Austria)
• Università of Valle dAosta (Italy)
• University of Siena (Italy)
• University of Hertfordshire (Great Britain)
• AIT Austrian Instiute of Technology, Wien
  (Austria)
• Robosoft, Bidart (France)
• Vilans, Maastricht (The Netherlands)
• AIJU Instituto Tecnológico del Juguete, Alicante
  (Spain)
• Risoluta SLL, Cadiz (Spain)

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The Adapted Robot Project
It is an ongoing project carried out by
the Research group on technologies for play of
children with disabilities established at the
University of Valle DAosta The research group
directed by prof. Serenella Besio is a
multidisciplinary team including an engineer, a
psychologist, a rehabilitation therapist and two
Ph.D students It is located at the Faculty of
Education of the University of Valle dAosta

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Aim of the two experimental studies
To promote play in children with severe motor
impairments by overcoming environmental
barriers thus enhancing childrens learning
potential and their social inclusion


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Why play?
Play is the primary occupation in
childhood Play is a major driving force of
childs growth (Vygotskij, Piaget) Play is
related to all the main developmental areas
(cognitive, social, emotional, motor)
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Play, education, rehabilitation - 1
Knowledge in the history of pedagogy (Pestalozzi,
1806, Fröbel, 1826 Claparède, 1905) underlines
the importance of play for the education of the
child considered as a whole, of body and mind In
the educational field play has been always
applied both as a mean for learning and as an end
in itself
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Play, education, rehabilitation - 2
Play-based interventions are largely applied in
the clinical context as a medium to achieve a
wide range of treatment objectives (e.g.
improvement of fine and global motor skills,
enhancement of language functions) with
children with disabilities, especially in the
early years (Schaefer,1994)
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Play, education, rehabilitation 3
The observation of play behavior is a well-known
methodology largely applied both in the
therapeutic and in the educational contexts as
an effective and ecologically sound approach to
assess the child in a wide range of areas
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The experience of play deprivation - 1
Children with some kind of disabilities may be
prevented from fully developing their play
skills, due both to individual and to
environmental factors The play deprivation
negatively affects the childs development and
can result also in secondary disabilities
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Why ICF-CYas a framework for play and disability

• It offers a bio-psychosocial framework
• It adopts a language that is common to multiple
  disciplines
• It directly addresses issues related to child
  development such as play stages and functions
• It examines many aspects related to technology
  as an important mean for individuals activity
  and participation

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The importance of Play
Play of children with motor disabilities
according to the ICF model
SOCIAL PLAY OBJECT PLAY
INCLUSION IN PLAY

• NEUROMUSCULOSKELETAL
• VOICE AND SPEECH
• PSYCHOMOTOR
• ()

PRODUCTS AND TECHNOLOGIES FOR PLAY
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Individual Factors and Play BODY FUNCTIONS

• Individual factors negatively affecting play in
  children with motor impairments
• Impairments in neuromusculoskeletal functions
• Impairments in voice and speech functions
• Impairments in psychomotor functions
• (.)

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Individual factors and PlayACTIVITY AND
PARTICIPATION

• Individual factors negatively affecting play in
  children with motor impairments
• Limitations in mobility
• Limitations in communication
• Limitations in basic learning
• (.)

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Environmental factors and play -1

• They can be barriers or facilitators!
• Products and Technology for play
• Products and Technology for communication
• Products and technology for mobility
• Products and technology for education
• ()

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Environmental factors and play - 2

• They can be barriers or facilitators!
• Support and relationships
• Attitudes
• Services and policies
• ()

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The Aosta team proposal 1
Provide the right technologies for play to
children with motor impairment thus enabling
them to reach their learning and social
potential Robotics, thanks to its high degree
of interactivity may help children with
motor Impairment to play independently, by
interaction with the physical environment
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The Aosta team proposal 2

• Two different approaches can be chosen
• Design of novel robotic technologies for play
• (IROMEC project)
• Adaptation of existing robotic technologies for
  play
• (Adapted Robots Project)

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Technologies applied

• IROMEC ROBOT a novel robotic toy
• specifically designed to meet the
• special play needs of children
• with severe disabilities
• Adapted robots off the shelf toy adapted
• through accessible user interfaces

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The IROMEC robot - 1

• The IROMEC robot consists of
• a mobile platform
• a configurable interaction module which covers
  the
• platform and can be easily plugged and
  unplugged
• a set of control buttons, allowing user with
  physical
• impairments to tele operate the robot by direct
  selection
• or through other input devices (external
  switches)

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The IROMEC robot - 2
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Adapted Robots

• Three different toy robots having a playful and
  enjoyable toy appearance and promoting in
  children active engagement and curiosity
• They are
• available on the market
• playable with the pre-selected scenarios
• robust and safe
• remote controlled via IR

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Adapted robots Mr Personality
It is a wheeled mobile robot It can display on
its colour LCD display different
personalities Facial expressions are combined
with arms,heads and trunks movements Mr
Personality can move around avoiding
obstacles Robot features also include sound,
music and pre-recorded messages
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Adapted robots Mr Personality

• In order to make accessible the system, the toys
• remote control has been adapted in order to be
  controlled
• via an AT device
• Further adaptations (to be done)
• Modification to visual feedback (faces)
• Modification to auditive feedbaks (pre-recorded
  messages)

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Adapted robots i-SOBOT 1
It is a small humanoid toy robot, with a strong
focus on expressiveness It can perform a wide
range of movements The remote control allows
users to create scripts, combining
together several movements and then activating
the script by pressing a single button It is
also equipped with a gyroscopic sensor and a
voice recognition system
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Adapted robots I-Sobot 2
It has been re-programmed in order to make its
functionalities accessible by single switch
users Thanks to this adaptation an imitation
game has been proposed to a group of motor
impaired children playing with their peers
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Adapted robots Wall-E 1
It is an appealing movie character with pre
stored vocal messages and sounds By mean of an
IR remote control it is possible to create more
than 1000 different combinations of movement
sequences It has 4 sensor for movement
detection and 4 sensors for sound recognition
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Adapted robots Wall-E 2
Thanks to its obstacle avoidance functions the
Wall-E robot has been tested in a Turn Taking
play scenario The movement sequences have been
programmed and the sequences codes have been
learned by an universal remote control
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Adapted robots work done

• Adaptation of toy robots
• Playability and Usability tests
• Play Scenarios selection

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Adapted Robots future work

• Development of new play scenarios
• Adaptation of other toy robots
• Assessment of educative and therapeutic
• outcomes of robot assisted play interventions

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IROMEC work done 1

• Analysis of Critical Factors
• involved in using interactive
• robots for education and therapy
• of children with disabilities
• Development of play scenarios
• Design of a prototype robot

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IROMEC work done 2

• Preliminary tests to evaluate, accessibility,
  safety and playability of the IROMEC robot
• Development of a methodological framework to set
  up educational and therapy sessions with the
  IROMEC robot
• Experimental trials for the assessment of
  educational and therapeutic outcomes of robot
  assisted play sessions

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IROMEC future work

• Assessment of the educative and therapeutic
  outcomes
• of the play sessions with the IROMEC prototype
• Development of guidelines, mainly addressed to
  teachers
• and therapists, to set up robot assisted play
  sessions
• with children with disabilities
• Validation of a specific software (MACRO-Play)
  developed to match the play needs of children
  with disabilities with play scenarios and the
  available robotic technologies

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Thank you for your attention!
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