DocumentCode :
2491134
Title :
Development of a virtual agent based social tutor for children with autism spectrum disorders
Author :
Milne, Marissa ; Luerssen, Martin H. ; Lewis, Trent W. ; Leibbrandt, Richard E. ; Powers, David M W
Author_Institution :
Sch. of Comput. Sci. Eng. & Math., Flinders Univ. of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, Australia
fYear :
2010
fDate :
18-23 July 2010
Firstpage :
1
Lastpage :
9
Abstract :
Virtual agents have been investigated as an educational tool for use with children on the autistic spectrum with positive results being gained for language skills with the use of autonomous agents and social skills with human-controlled agents. This project combines these ideas to investigate the utility of autonomous agents for teaching social skills. The virtual agent used in this project, known as the Thinking Head, has an ability to realistically portray facial expressions that lends it to this task. Two prototype modules were developed for this agent platform, one teaching basic conversation skills and the other dealing with bullying. In a pre-test-post-test evaluation, a group of children with autism who were exposed to the training modules obtained significantly higher post-test scores on their knowledge of these two topics. In addition, responses to a post-training survey indicated that participants found the virtual tutor enjoyable and useful.
Keywords :
computer aided instruction; diseases; multi-agent systems; teaching; Thinking Head; autism spectrum disorder; autonomous agents; basic conversation skills teaching; educational tool; human controlled agent; pre-test-post-test evaluation; social skills; virtual agent based social tutor; Animation; Autism; Keyboards; Magnetic heads; Prototypes; Software; Speech;
fLanguage :
English
Publisher :
ieee
Conference_Titel :
Neural Networks (IJCNN), The 2010 International Joint Conference on
Conference_Location :
Barcelona
ISSN :
1098-7576
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-6916-1
Type :
conf
DOI :
10.1109/IJCNN.2010.5596584
Filename :
5596584
Link To Document :
بازگشت