Emotional Skills Training with Social Robot

Not Applicable

Recruiting

• Conditions: Autism Spectrum Disorder
• Interventions: Other: NAO intervention; Other: Traditional intervention

• Registration Number: NCT06179953
• Lead Sponsor: Istituto per la Ricerca e l'Innovazione Biomedica

Brief Summary

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder that involves difficulties especially in the sphere of social interaction, social communication, and restricted and stereotyped behavior patterns.

In particular, emotional regulation is a central developmental skill. In fact, the emotional dysregulation observed in children with autism results in increased social and behavioral difficulties over time.

Therefore, the present protocol aims to test the role of a human-assisted social robot as a mediator of social-emotional understanding intervention for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD).

The children, will be divided into two groups, an experimental one in which training will be conducted through the use of social robot and control group which will be conducted through traditional therapy.

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2023-06-05
• Study First Submitted: 2023-12-12
• Study First Submitted QC: 2023-12-12
• Study First Posted: 2023-12-22
• Primary Completion: 2024-02-06
• Status Verified: 2024-12
• Last Update Submitted: 2025-01-16
• Last Update Posted: 2025-01-17
• Study Completion: 2025-04-24

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: RECRUITING
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 20

Inclusion Criteria

• Language in sentences
• use of connectors
• ability to narrate events not present
• ADOS level: module 2
• Griffiths: QS>75

Exclusion Criteria

• presence of other medical disorders

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Experimental group with social robot	NAO intervention	The emotional skills protocol aims to achieve the following objectives: * Acquisition of appropriate emotional skills and understanding of emotions; * Construction of functional thoughts related to emotions; * Enhancement of interpersonal and social skills. It is aimed at a sample of children diagnosed with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD) between the ages of 5 and 10. The experimental group will carry out training through the use of social robots. The robot provides instructions and if the child requests it, it gives prompts.
Control group without social robot	Traditional intervention	The emotional skills protocol aims to achieve the following objectives: * Acquisition of appropriate emotional skills and understanding of emotions; Construction of functional thoughts related to emotions; * Enhancement of interpersonal and social skills. It is aimed at a sample of children diagnosed with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD) between the ages of 5 and 10. Control group which will be conducted through traditional therapy. The therapist provides instructions, and if the child has difficulty responding, he gives prompts.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Test of Emotional Vocabulary	The administration has a duration of 15 minutes.	The Test of Emotional Vocabulary contains an initial board, with which the child is introduced to the two protagonists of the subsequent stories, a boy and a girl; there is then a pretest board and 14 storyboards. For each of them, the examiner reads the short story to the child and then asks the child to choose, from two alternative emotional words, the one that best expresses what the protagonist of the story is feeling. In the first part, the child's understanding of emotional vocabulary referring to six basic emotions plus one complex emotion (joy, happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust and shame) is assessed; in the second part, the emotional terms all refer to complex emotions (guilt, envy, jealousy, contempt, hate, longing and pride).
Test of emotion comprehension	The administration has a duration of 15-20 minutes.	The Test of emotion comprehension (TEC) is an instrument to assess a child's understanding of emotions, in its various aspects, that is, the nature, causes, and ways of controlling and regulating emotions. It is used for children aged 3-4 to 10-11 years. It is administered by telling a story in pictures, the child responds by indicating and finally, it takes about 15-20 minutes.

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Institute for Biomedical Research and Innovation (IRIB) - National Research Council (CNR); 🇮🇹 Messina, Italy