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Mobile Robotic Toys and Autism 131

plicity or because it exploit skills developed in other activities like the use of
pictograms or geometrical shapes) by the child.
In future tests and with the help of educators, we want to establish a more
detailed evaluation process in order to assess the impact of the mobile robotic
toys on the development of the child. We also want to improve the robot de-
signs and to have more robots that can be lent to schools over longer periods of
time. The robots should integrate different levels of interaction with the child,
starting with very simple behaviors to more sophisticated interplay situations.
Catching and keeping their attention are important if we want the children to
learn, and the observations made with the robots described in the previous sec-
tion can be beneficial. The idea is not as much as using the robot to make chil-
dren learn to recognize for instance pictograms (they learn to do this in other
activities), but to make them develop social skills like concentration, sharing,
turn passing, adaptation to changes, etc. Finding the appropriate reward that
would make the child want to respond to the robot’s request is very important.
Predictability in the robot’s behavior is beneficial to help them understand what
is going on and how to receive rewards. Also, since the robot is a device that
is programmed, the robot’s behavior can evolve over time, changing the rein-
forcing loop over time, to make them learn to deal with more sensory inputs
and unpredictability. Finally, to adapt mobile robot toys to each child, recon-
figurable robots, using different hardware and software components, might be
one solution to explore.
Using interactive robotic toys is surely an interesting idea that has the poten-
tial of providing an additional intervention method to the rehabilitation process
of autistic children. We are not alone working on this aspect. The AURORA
project (AUtonomous RObotic platform as a Remedial tool for children with
Autism) [2, 1, 5] is one of such initiatives addressed in the previous chapter.
We are very much encouraged by the observations made, and we will con-
tinue to design new mobile robots [4] and to do tests with autistic children.
The basic challenge is to design a robot that can catch their attention and help
them develop their social skills by building up their self-esteem. At this point,
we still need to work on simple ways of interacting with the child, to help them
understand how the robot works and exploit the knowledge and skills they ac-
quire in other pedagogical activities. Our hope is that mobile robotic toys can
become efficient therapeutic tools that will help children with autism develop
early on the necessary social skills they need to compensate for and cope with
their disability.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to the children who participated in these tests and their parents, M.-J. Gagnon,
J. Rioux and the École Du Touret, B. Côté and S.P.E.C. Tintamarre inc. for their collaboration.