Social Relations Training for Children With ASD

Summary

The following protocol was developed with the intention of significantly improving social skills by focusing on increasing relationship skills among children with ASD. Divided into two distinct parts, "Basic Social Relationships" and "Intermediate Social Relationships," the protocol has 4 stages for the former and 5 stages for the latter. Each phase is preparatory to the next, and in addition, a teaching procedure is implemented that adopts three prompt levels (partial, moderate and total), gradually aiming to reduce the assistance provided to encourage independent response. This gradual approach is designed to stimulate greater independence in social interactions.

The training lasts between 6 and 12 months, with one or two weekly group meetings lasting forty-five minutes each. Before the start and at the end of the protocol, participants are assessed using the Vineland scale to evaluate their adaptive behaviors.

The primary goal is to enable children with autism to develop meaningful social skills, providing them with concrete tools to interact more effectively and independently with their peers, thus improving their quality of life and social involvement. The protocol involves two distinct groups, experimental and control group.

The experimental group involves the use of a social robot that acts as a mediator in the interactions among participants. The role of the social robot is to facilitate, reinforce and support the participants' responses during the activities. The therapist coordinates with the social robot, helping to guide, reinforce and support participants' interactions.

In the control group, the therapist takes on the role of mediating interactions, helping and facilitating participants' responses. There is no involvement of a social robot; therefore,the therapist self acts directly to guide, reinforce and support the participants' social interactions.

Conditions

• Autism
• Autism Spectrum Disorder

Interventions

OTHER

Social relation training with social robot

The protocol is divided in two sections: basic and advanced social relations. The "basic social relations"section consists of 4 stages: Stage 1 focuses on spontaneous eye contact between the child and the robot Strage 2 introduces the goal of spontaneously looking at a peer Stage 3 focuses on respecting the turn between children Stage 4 aims to encourage peer cooperation Nao social robot helps children to develop specific social skills. The "advanced social relation" section consists of 5 stages: Stage 1: The goal is to initiate physical interaction with a peer during a game Stage 2 is focused on mand (verbal requests) directed to peers Stage 3: The goal is to respond spontaneously to questions or statements from peers In the Stage 4 the child should to play with peers for at least 5 minutes Stage 5: the goal is to conduct at least 4 verbal exchanges on a given topic with peers At each stage, Nao provides verbal prompts to guide the child toward the appropriate response

OTHER

Traditional social relations training

Traditional social relations training is the same as the experimental one, however in this context the entire protocol is conducted without the aid of social robot NAO.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Messina, Italy

  collaborator OTHER

• Istituto per la Ricerca e l'Innovazione Biomedica

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Flavia Marino · Institute for Biomedical Research and Innovation (IRIB) - National Research Council (CNR)

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

5 Years

Max Age

10 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2023-04-17

Primary Completion

2025-01-15

Completion

2025-04-28

Countries

• Italy

Study Locations