Keepon rocking:
Bouncy toy bot leads to breakthroughs in understanding autism By Stephanie Levy
E
arly detection and intervention is key for any parent with a child on the autism spectrum. Symptoms such as delayed verbal development, lack of eye contact, and difficulty following social and visual cues can start before a child even reaches preschool. The current edition of the “Diagnostic and Statical Manual of Mental Disorders” breaks these problems down into social, linguistic and imaginative impairment; typically, a child must exhibit all three impairments before a doctor can diagnose autism. Now, robotics can play a unique role in breaking down the barriers between children with autism and the world around them. Keepon, a small, squishy yellow robot designed by BeatBots, has been used in play with children with autism as part of efforts to understand and, ultimately, improve the social, linguistic and imaginative skills in these kids. Keepon looks like a stumpy snowman; its head and body are two balls of soft silicone rubber stacked on top of each other. Together, Keepon’s head and body can change forms when it moves on its own or when someone touches it; it has four degrees of freedom. Keepon’s eyes are actually tiny cameras, and its nose acts as a microphone.
“Keepon … has a minimal design for facilitating exchange of attention and emotions with people, especially babies and toddlers, in simple and comprehensive ways,” researchers from Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology and Omihachiman-City Day-Care Center for Children With Special Needs wrote in the 2007 article “Children-robot interaction: a pilot study in autism therapy,” which ran in the journal Progress in Brain Research. Through Keepon’s “eyes,” researchers were able to capture incredible improvements in the interactions between child and robot, from the first-person perspective of the robot itself. For instance, researchers tracked one 3-year-old girl who had been diagnosed with autism and
moderate mental retardation. Over the course of five months, the little girl played with Keepon in therapeutic sessions, group activities and free playtime. In total, the little girl interacted with Keepon in 15 sessions. At first, researchers write that the child “avoided being looked at directly by Keepon (i.e., gaze aversion); however, [she] gradually approached it from the side and looked at it in profile.” All of this interaction typically took place from more than two meters away. By the end of her eleventh session with Keepon, the little girl would move closer to the robot, and she “began acting exploratively with Keepon, such as looking into its eyes, waving her hand at it and listening to its sound.” At first, the little girl appeared to be afraid of Keepon, this strange and
Its “guts” may be mechanical and minimalist, but on the outside Keepon resembles a plush children’s toy. All photos via Progress in Brain Research.