A Robot Training Buddy for adults with ASD

自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）影响了英国695，000人，其中约547，000人为18岁或以上（占工作年龄成年人的1.3%）。ASD成年人的失业率高于85%，几乎是更广泛残疾人口失业率48%的两倍。其中一个原因是ASD患者很难解释社交信号，这些表达性的行为线索使人们表现出他们的感受或想法（面部表情，发声，手势等）。该项目将开发一个社交能力机器人训练伙伴，帮助自闭症患者更好地处理与工作相关的场景中的社交信号。该项目本质上是跨学科的，福尔斯属于社会辅助机器人的新研究领域，处于机器人，心理学和社会信号处理的十字路口。到目前为止，自主机器人在很大程度上被视为功能设计，以有效的方式执行定义明确的任务。然而，社会辅助机器人（SAR）必须适应正常的人类社会环境，并遵循不干扰办公室或家庭或扰乱人类互动伙伴的互动规则。该项目将重点关注患有ASD的高功能成年人，就像身体辅助机器人使人们能够做出因身体损伤而困难的运动一样，该项目的SAR使ASD患者能够完成由于社会认知障碍而难以（如果不是不可能）完成的社会任务。主要目标是降低行为技能培训（BST）的成本。通过机器人训练伙伴的发展。BST被认为是缓解ASD影响的最有效方法之一，但由于劳动密集型，不能广泛应用。使用自主机器人将减少BST的人力和成本，并使其更广泛地使用。主要的技术挑战是开发一种新的情感架构，使机器人适合行为排练，BST的关键阶段。在行为排练中，机器人必须加强其人类互动伙伴使用适当的社交信号，同时抑制使用不适当的社交信号。该团队将与参与ASD成年人培训的利益相关者合作，开发与最终用户开发和评估培训伙伴的工作场所相关场景。这项工作将为将社交能力机器人引入人类社会环境奠定必要的科学基础，为众多家庭，教育和辅助应用开辟道路。

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) affects 695,000 people in the UK, and about 547,000 of these are 18 or over (1.3% of the adults in working age). The unemployment rate among adults with an ASD is higher than 85%, nearly double the unemployment rate of 48% for the wider disabled population. One reason for this is that people with an ASD struggle to interpret social signals, those expressive behavioural cues through which people manifest what they feel or think (facial expressions, vocalisations, gestures, etc.). This project will develop a Socially-Competent Robot Training Buddy that will help adults with ASD to better deal with social signals in work-related scenarios.The project is inherently interdisciplinary and falls in the new research area of Socially Assistive Robotics, at the crossroads between robotics, psychology, and social signal processing. So far, autonomous robots have largely been seen as functionally engineered to carrying out well-defined tasks in an efficient manner. However Socially Assistive Robots (SARs) must fit into normal human social environments and follow interaction rules that do not disrupt an office or a home or upset their human interaction partners. This project will focus on high-functioning adults with an ASD, and just as physically assistive robots enable people to make movements that are difficult because of physical impairments, the SAR of this project enables people with an ASD to perform social tasks that are difficult - if not impossible - due to social cognition impairments.The main goal is to reduce the cost of Behavioural Skills Training (BST) through the development of a Robot Training Buddy. BST is recognized as one of the most effective approaches to alleviate ASD effects, but cannot be applied extensively because it is labour intensive. Using an autonomous robot would reduce the human effort and cost of BST and make it more widely available. The main technological challenge is the development of a novel affective architecture that makes a robot suitable for behaviour rehearsal, a critical stage of BST. In behaviour rehearsal, the robot must reinforce the use of appropriate social signals by its human interaction partner while inhibiting the use of inappropriate ones. The team will work with stakeholders involved with training for adults with an ASD to develop workplace-relevant scenarios in which to develop and evaluate the Training Buddy with end-users.This work will develop the necessary scientific basis for the introduction of socially-competent robots into human social environments, opening the way to a multitude of domestic, educational and assistive applications.