[yframe url=’http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=nwJsxLOilcc’]<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The young boy, Jack, shyly approaches his friend in a classroom at Whiting Lane Elementary School. This is the last time they\u2019ll see each other, and Jack has a gift for his playmate: a picture of the two of them together, and the words, \u201cI\u2019ll miss you.\u201d<\/p>\n
A common enough scene, except the \u201cyou\u201d in this case is a humanoid robot programmed by researchers affiliated with the University of Connecticut and Movia Robotics to help children with learning delays like those on the autism spectrum improve their social and communication skills.<\/p>\n
\u201cHi, Jack,\u201d the robot chirps in greeting, before he and the student get into a sequence of activities designed to help Jack not just in the classroom, but in his daily life.<\/p>\n
Timothy Gifford \u2013 who is the CEO of Movia Robotics as well as the director of the Advanced Interactive Technology Center at UConn\u2019s Center for Health, Intervention, and Prevention (CHIP) \u2013 sees the work as having potential to cross over into the marketplace.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s really the goal: to take this out of the lab and into the classroom,\u201d he says. \u201cOne of the reasons we wanted to make this a commercially available product is to get it into the hands of as many schools and students as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s going to take some time, and the project is still in development, as Gifford and his team learn what works, and what a high-tech product like a robot needs to have in order to function in the world of elementary school kids and daily use.<\/p>\n
This is ultimately a very satisfying project to be involved in. It\u2019s something that\u2019s not just interesting from a research perspective, but something that can also make a difference in people\u2019s lives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
At his lab at the Connecticut Science Center, where he\u2019s currently scientist-in-residence, Gifford works with programmers who are developing the sequences the two-foot-tall robots, which are made by a French company called Aldebaran Robotics, use in their interactions with students.<\/p>\n
While the robot engages the students one-on-one, someone else \u2013 right now a researcher, but hopefully soon a teacher or teacher\u2019s aide \u2013 guides the interaction from a laptop computer. The six sequences are flexible enough to be effective when working with children with different levels of ability: one child delightedly bangs on a drum along with the robot, while another runs through more complex verbal exercises designed to improve his ability to communicate with peers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis system is really neat because the robot becomes the focus for the child. The robot acts as sort of the mediator or the deliverer of the information,\u201d Gifford says.<\/p>\n
Far from being a potential replacement for teachers, the robots will ideally become a powerful tool for communicating with students who have trouble understanding verbal cues or body language from adults.<\/p>\n
The work is currently being done with students in kindergarten through fifth grade at Whiting Lane, with plans to expand to two other elementary schools soon. An exhibit on the project is also on display at the Connecticut Science Center, where one of the robots explains its functions with the aid of a video and a push-button console.<\/p>\n
Among the challenges Gifford is working to address are the wear-and-tear the robots absorb over the course of sessions with the students, and what Gifford calls \u201cthe novelty factor.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were worried the kids would get bored with the robots after a few weeks, but so far we\u2019ve been able to consistently stimulate interest,\u201d thanks in part to the use of simpler toy robots in conjunction with the state-of-the-art Aldebaran models, Gifford says.<\/p>\n
And while more work remains to be done before their research can reach conclusions, Gifford is encouraged by what he\u2019s learned so far.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is ultimately a very satisfying project to be involved in,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s something that\u2019s not just interesting from a research perspective, but something that can also make a difference in people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A UConn-affiliated researcher is preparing to take his work on robots and autism out of the lab and into the marketplace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":76740,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2231,2076,70],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[131],"class_list":["post-76783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-well-being","category-research","category-video"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-12 13:53:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76783"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78510,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76783\/revisions\/78510"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/76740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76783"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=76783"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=76783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}