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Development of a software-based social tutor for children with autism spectrum disorders

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OZCHI '09: Proceedings of the 21st Annual Conference of the Australian Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group: Design: Open 24/7

Pages 265 - 268

https://doi.org/10.1145/1738826.1738870

Published: 23 November 2009 Publication History

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Abstract

This work in progress aims to investigate the potential for using autonomous virtual agents as social tutors for children with autism through the development of a prototype software program. Existing studies have investigated the use of human controlled virtual agents for social skills development and autonomous virtual agents for language development, both achieving positive outcomes. The virtual agent component of this, known as the Thinking Head, has a lifelike appearance and ability to model realistic facial expressions that lends it to this application. The evaluation component of this project will examine the children's ability to recognize particular facial expressions and choose appropriate social actions to take before and after a short interaction with the social tutor. Additionally, the evaluation investigates the children's thoughts about their experience with the virtual agent. The outcome of this project will provide insights for the potential of this approach and provide direction for future research and development.

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Cited By

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Xygkou ASiriaraya PShe WCovaci AAng C(2024)“Can I be More Social with a Chatbot?”: Social Connectedness Through Interactions of Autistic Adults with a Conversational Virtual HumanInternational Journal of Human–Computer Interaction10.1080/10447318.2023.229288040:24(8937-8954)Online publication date: 4-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2023.2292880
Hernández Lara MCaro KMartínez-García A(2023)Technology for supporting emotion regulation of individuals with developmental disabilities: A scoping reviewResearch in Developmental Disabilities10.1016/j.ridd.2023.104467136(104467)Online publication date: May-2023
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ridd.2023.104467
Luxton DSirotin A(2021)Intelligent Conversational Agents in Global HealthInnovations in Global Mental Health10.1007/978-3-030-57296-9_11(489-500)Online publication date: 3-Nov-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57296-9_11
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Index Terms

Development of a software-based social tutor for children with autism spectrum disorders
1. Applied computing
  1. Education

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Published In

OZCHI '09: Proceedings of the 21st Annual Conference of the Australian Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group: Design: Open 24/7

November 2009

445 pages

ISBN:9781605588544

DOI:10.1145/1738826

Conference Chair:
Marcus Foth
Queensland University of Technology
,
Program Chairs:
Jesper Kjeldskov
Aalborg University
,
Jeni Paay
CSIRO

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 23 November 2009

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OZCHI '09

OZCHI '09: Proceedings of the 21st conference of the computer-human interaction special interest group of Australia on Computer-human interaction: design

November 23 - 27, 2009

Melbourne, Australia

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OZCHI '09 Paper Acceptance Rate 32 of 60 submissions, 53%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 362 of 729 submissions, 50%

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Cited By

View all

Xygkou ASiriaraya PShe WCovaci AAng C(2024)“Can I be More Social with a Chatbot?”: Social Connectedness Through Interactions of Autistic Adults with a Conversational Virtual HumanInternational Journal of Human–Computer Interaction10.1080/10447318.2023.229288040:24(8937-8954)Online publication date: 4-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2023.2292880
Hernández Lara MCaro KMartínez-García A(2023)Technology for supporting emotion regulation of individuals with developmental disabilities: A scoping reviewResearch in Developmental Disabilities10.1016/j.ridd.2023.104467136(104467)Online publication date: May-2023
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ridd.2023.104467
Luxton DSirotin A(2021)Intelligent Conversational Agents in Global HealthInnovations in Global Mental Health10.1007/978-3-030-57296-9_11(489-500)Online publication date: 3-Nov-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57296-9_11
Ali MRazavi SLangevin RAl Mamun AKane BRawassizadeh RSchubert LHoque E(2020)A Virtual Conversational Agent for Teens with Autism Spectrum DisorderProceedings of the 20th ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents10.1145/3383652.3423900(1-8)Online publication date: 20-Oct-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3383652.3423900
Luxton DSirotin A(2020)Intelligent Conversational Agents in Global HealthInnovations in Global Mental Health10.1007/978-3-319-70134-9_11-1(1-12)Online publication date: 25-Apr-2020
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70134-9_11-1
Provoost SLau HRuwaard JRiper H(2017)Embodied Conversational Agents in Clinical Psychology: A Scoping ReviewJournal of Medical Internet Research10.2196/jmir.655319:5(e151)Online publication date: 9-May-2017
https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.6553
Wilson CSitbon LBrereton MJohnson DKoplick SDuh HLueg CBillinghust MHuang W(2016)'Put yourself in the picture'Proceedings of the 28th Australian Conference on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/3010915.3010924(271-281)Online publication date: 29-Nov-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3010915.3010924
Tan JDay DWamsley K(2015)Designing an interactive personal assistant web application systemJournal of Computing Sciences in Colleges10.5555/2675327.267534730:3(126-133)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/2675327.2675347
Virnes MKärnä EVellonen V(2015)Review of Research on Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and the Use of TechnologyJournal of Special Education Technology10.1177/01626434150300010230:1(13-27)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2015
https://doi.org/10.1177/016264341503000102
Foster MAvramides KBernardini SChen JFrauenberger CLemon OPorayska-Pomsta Kdel Bimbo AChang SSmeulders A(2010)Supporting children's social communication skills through interactive narratives with virtual charactersProceedings of the 18th ACM international conference on Multimedia10.1145/1873951.1874163(1111-1114)Online publication date: 25-Oct-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1873951.1874163

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Index Terms

Recommendations

Leveraging curiosity to encourage social interactions in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: preliminary results using the interactive toy PlusMe

A robot-assisted behavioral intervention system for children with autism spectrum disorders

Evaluation of tablet apps to encourage social interaction in children with autism spectrum disorders