Response of children with autism to robotic intervention and association with IQ levels

This paper presents a qualitative observation on the initial response of children with autism when exposed to a humanoid robot. To elicit response, the robot autonomously executed 5 segments of interaction designed according to the triad impairments of autism. The aim was to observe the children´s autistic behavior with a robot compared to their natural characteristics as observed in classroom setting. We also seek the association between responses to the robot with the children´s intelligence level. Results with 12 children were analyzed to acquire relationship between initial responses and the children´s IQ scores. Analysis indicates that the presence of the robot had significantly reduced the scores of autistic traits in the subscale of stereotyped behavior and communication. Behavior evaluation shows that children with IQ scores ranging from 80 to 109 were more receptive to robot-based intervention.