Proposal of Robot-Interaction Based Intervention for Joint-Attention Development

Abstract

The Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a condition that can be highly challenging when facing interaction with others. One of the pivotal social skills that is not fully developed in ASD individuals is the joint-attention, due to high engagement in their own thoughts and emotions. Joint-attention is a base for important social behaviours. At the same time, promising results have arisen from studies on the interaction of social robots with ASD children, arguably because its low emotional evocation. In this paper we discuss an intervention proposal for a robot-interaction aiming to develop join-attention in ASD children. This intervention is based in two activities, each one can be graduated at three different level each, with an increasing level of socialization, in order to help develop this skills in a natural way.