Jillian Greczek

How to train your DragonBot: Socially assistive robots for teaching children about nutrition through play

This paper describes an extended (6-session) interaction between an ethnically and geographically diverse group of 26 first-grade children and the DragonBot robot in the context of learning about healthy food choices. We find that children demonstrate a high level of enjoyment when interacting with the robot, and a statistically significant increase in engagement with the system over the duration of the interaction. We also find evidence of relationship-building between the child and robot, and encouraging trends towards child learning. These results are promising for the use of socially assistive robotic technologies for long-term one-on-one educational interventions for younger children.

Graded cueing feedback in robot-mediated imitation practice for children with autism spectrum disorders

We performed a study that examined the effects of a humanoid robot giving the minimum required feedback - graded cueing - during a one-on-one imitation game played children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). 12 high-functioning participants with ASD, ages 7 to 10, each played “Copy-Cat” with a Nao robot 5 times over the span of 2.5 weeks. While the graded cueing model was not exercised in its fullest, using graded cueing-style feedback resulted in a nondecreasing trend in imitative accuracy when compared to a non-adaptive condition, where participants always received the same, most descriptive feedback whenever they made a mistake. These trends show promise for future work with robots encouraging autonomy in special needs populations.

A Computational Model of Graded Cueing: Robots Encouraging Behavior Change

This work presents a model of the occupational therapy technique of graded cueing for teaching and practicing desirable health and social behaviors adapted for use in socially assistive human-machine interaction. Graded cueing is represented as a probabilistic model of first prompt choice based on the perceived user ability level. The model is used to increase imitation proficiency of children with autism spectrum disorders through a “Copy Cat” imitation game.

My classroom robot: Exploring telepresence for K-12 education in a virtual environment

Telepresence robots have the potential to improve access to K-12 education. However, designing robots for classroom use presents unique challenges from both logistical and technological perspectives. To address these challenges, we created My Classroom Robot, an interactive game in which players can operate a virtual telepresence robot in a classroom environment. The virtual classroom environment allows us to collect data and prototype different designs prior to involving the high overhead required in going into the real classroom. In this work, we present the design of My Classroom Robot, an initial evaluation, and the lessons learned from its development.

Encouraging User Autonomy through Robot-Mediated Intervention

1. MOTIVATION In this paper, we focus on the question of promoting user autonomy at a healthcare task. During a robot-mediated intervention, socially assistive robot should seek to encourage users to learn skills and behaviors that will generalize and persist beyond the duration of the intervention. Treating a care-receiver as an apprentice rather than a dependent results in greater proficiency at self-management [2]. This philosophy must be incorporated into the design and implementation of robotmediated healthcare interventions in order for them to be accepted by real-world users.