Pepper, a friendly humanoid bot from SoftBank Robotics, is supporting pupils with their emotions and wellbeing. Students with autism, aged 12 to 19 in The Mendip School near Shepton Mallet, are receiving help regulating their feelings in a three-week-long research project.
Pepper can carry out a range of physical and social activities, including dancing, story-telling, and relaxation techniques to help the children deal with emotions. As children with autism can have trouble regulating their emotions, calming their emotions and regulating them is helpful.
The children have been able to approach the robot for help, enabling them to achieve newfound confidence, helping them socialise more easily. Pupils and teachers at the school designed the activities along with the robot.
Assistant headteacher at the Mendip School, Iian Conley, said, “Since Pepper arrived at the school there has been a lot of dancing and the children have also really enjoyed the robot’s jokes. One of the great things we’ve seen already is children gathering in groups to engage with Pepper.”
“Children who wouldn’t normally socially interact with others are now choosing to interact with their peers. It’s great to see students willing to communicate with the robot where they might struggle with adults and children and to see them opening up their friendship groups,” Conley added.
The project utilises the expertise of UWE researchers from the fields of architecture, robotics, and education to figure out how, when, and where the robot can be of the utmost assistance to pupils with autism in the school.
“Using robots to support autistic children is not entirely new. However, while previous research has focused on teaching skills to children, our autistic participants told us this is not what they actually need,” said Dr Severin Lemaignan, an associate professor in Social Robotics. “Our approach focuses instead on wellbeing and child-led interactions. Our robot lives in the school’s corridors: Pepper engages with the children on their terms.”
Robots like Pepper that exhibit social intelligence cost £20,000 on an average. Even though expensive, they are being considered a worthwhile investment for the future.
