A survey of expectations about the role of robots in robot-assisted therapy for children with ASD

Author(s)

Mark Coeckelbergh, Cristina Pop, Ramona Simut, Andreea Peca, Sebastian Pintea, Daniel David, Bram Vanderborght

Abstract

The use of robots in therapy for children with autism

spectrum disorder (ASD) raises issues concerning the ethical and social

acceptability of this technology and, more generally, about human–robot

interaction. However, usually philosophical papers on the ethics of

human–robot-interaction do not take into account stakeholders’ views;

yet it is important to involve stakeholders in order to render the

research responsive to concerns within the autism and autism therapy

community. To support responsible research and innovation in this field,

this paper identifies a range of ethical, social and therapeutic

concerns, and presents and discusses the results of an exploratory

survey that investigated these issues and explored stakeholders’

expectations about this kind of therapy. We conclude that although in

general stakeholders approve of using robots in therapy for children

with ASD, it is wise to avoid replacing therapists by robots and to

develop and use robots that have what we call supervised autonomy. This

is likely to create more trust among stakeholders and improve the

quality of the therapy. Moreover, our research suggests that issues

concerning the appearance of the robot need to be adequately dealt with

by the researchers and therapists. For instance, our survey suggests

that zoomorphic robots may be less problematic than robots that look too

much like humans.

Organisation(s)

External organisation(s)

De Montfort University, Babeș-Bolyai University, Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Journal

Science and Engineering Ethics

Volume

22

Pages

47-65

No. of pages

19

ISSN

1353-3452

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-015-9649-x

Publication date

02-2016

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

603113 Philosophy

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Health(social science), Health Policy, Management of Technology and Innovation, Issues, ethics and legal aspects

Portal url

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/ab41f4b2-6e0b-4c05-8764-23d2705a14d7