Robot-based intervention may reduce delay in the production of intransitive gestures in Chinese-speaking preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder.
Wing-Chee So, Miranda Kit-Yi Wong, Wan-Yi Lam and 8 others
PMID 29796238WHAT IT FOUND
After a training package using a robot, stories, pictures, prompts, teacher and researcher support, and rewards, preschoolers with autism produced symbolic hand gestures more accurately than wait-list peers and matched typical development in new stories at 2 weeks.
Key findings
01In delayed posttests, children who received the robot-based training package produced gestures more accurately than wait-list children in both trained and untrained stories, and in untrained stories they matched typically developing children.
02Children who received the training package said paired words more often while gesturing at delayed posttests than before training; wait-list children did not show this increase.
03Better gesture recognition predicted better gesture learning, and spontaneous imitation during training partly explained that link.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study used a small sample: 15 children in the autism training group and 15 in the autism wait-list group, all Chinese-speaking children aged 4 to 6 attending special care centres in Hong Kong. The outcome was gesture production during story tasks, not communication in daily life. The authors state there was no evidence that trained children applied the gestures when interacting with others in daily life. Follow-up was only 2 weeks, so longer-term maintenance was not tested. The study did not compare the robot with a human teacher, so it cannot say the robot is better than a therapist or teacher. The training package included robot gestures, recorded story narration, background pictures, researcher prompting, teacher presence, and snacks or toys, so the contribution of any single component cannot be separated.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that the robot alone caused the gains. The children also heard recorded story narration, saw background pictures, imitated gestures, were accompanied by a teacher, were prompted by a researcher, and received snacks or toys, so the contribution of each part cannot be separated. The study also did not test whether the gestures were used in daily life.