New Technologies helping Children with Disabilities proven to be a Success

One of the most rewarding aspects of the engineering field comes when the hard work of engineers helps humanity in some measure. Researchers at the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering recently released the findings from a study using humanoid robots to help autistic children, and even Alzheimer’s patients, learn autonomous tasks.

Needless to say, their work appears to be very promising. Let’s take a closer look.

Robots helping Autistic Children to Learn

The USC study, led by Maja Matarić, Vice Dean for Research at the Viterbi School, leveraged humanoid shaped robots performing specific cues or prompts to help patients learn — or relearn — a variety of skills. The study subjects essentially played a game of copycat with the robots. Matarić commented on the study’s hopes.

“There is a vast health care need that can be aided by intelligent machines capable of helping people of all ages to be less lonely, to do rehabilitative exercises, and to learn social behaviors,” Matarić said. “There’s so much that can be done that can complement human care as well as other emerging technologies.”

The robots give feedback by saying “Good Job!” when the children successfully imitate their cues. If they aren’t successful, the robot simply repeats the cue. The ultimate hope is that the autistic children would learn the right social skills to help them better interact with other kids during gameplay.

Children who received the robotic feedback tended to show improved performance as the tests continued. Those in a control group with no feedback, showed no marked improvement. “The idea is to eventually give every child a personalized robot dedicated to providing motivation and praise and nudges toward more integration,” Matarić said.

The promising early results from the USC study once again display how engineering innovations hold the potential to benefit humanity.

If the work at the USC Viterbi School inspires you to take your engineering career to the next level, talk to the experts at The Talley Group. As one of the top technical staffing agencies in Washington State, they are also a great source for Seattle engineering jobs. Schedule some time with The Talley Group today!