Kumazaki Hirokazu, Muramatsu Taro, Yoshikawa Yuichiro, Haraguchi Hideyuki, Sono Taichi, Matsumoto Yoshio, Ishiguro Hiroshi, Kikuchi Mitsuru, Sumiyoshi Tomiki, Mimura Masaru
Department of Preventive Intervention for Psychiatric Disorders, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health, Tokyo, Japan.
Department of Clinical Research on Social Recognition and Memory, Research Center for Child Mental Development, Kanazawa University, Ishikawa, Japan.
Front Psychiatry. 2021 Jan 25;11:598688. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2020.598688. eCollection 2020.
COVID-19 has affected many areas of daily life, including communication and learning. Social distancing is essential to prevent the spread of COVID-19. In these situations, teaching communication skills is essential for helping individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) reach their full potential. To provide communication education while maintaining social distancing, we developed a communication training system using a tele-operated robot. In this system, we prepared a PC and a robot for each participant. The participants were grouped in pairs and communicated with each other through the tele-operated robot. The objective of this study was to test whether this system can maintain motivation for training in individuals with ASD and whether our system was useful for improving communication skills. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups: the taking a class by teachers alone (TCT) group or robot-mediated communication exercise (RMC) group. Participants in the TCT group took a class about communication skills from their teacher. Participants in the RMC group, in addition to taking a class by teacher, were grouped in pairs and communicated with each other through the tele-operated robot once a week over 4 weeks (for a total of five sessions). In total, twenty individuals with ASD participated in the study. One-way ANOVA revealed that there were significantly greater improvements in being good at describing their thoughts to others, which was self-rated ( = 6.583; = 0.019), and good at listening to the thoughts or feelings of others, which was rated by themselves ( = 5.635; = 0.029) and their teacher ( = 5.333; = 0.033). As expected, the motivation for training using this system was maintained during a session. Overall, this study revealed that our system was useful for improving communication skills (e.g., listening to the thoughts or feelings of others). Teaching communication skills under pandemic conditions is important, and this study demonstrated the feasibility of communication training using tele-operated robots.
新冠疫情已经影响到日常生活的许多方面，包括交流和学习。保持社交距离对于预防新冠病毒传播至关重要。在这些情况下，教授沟通技巧对于帮助自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）患者充分发挥其潜力至关重要。为了在保持社交距离的同时提供沟通教育，我们开发了一种使用遥控机器人的沟通训练系统。在这个系统中，我们为每个参与者准备了一台电脑和一个机器人。参与者两两分组，通过遥控机器人相互交流。本研究的目的是测试该系统是否能够维持ASD患者的训练积极性，以及我们的系统是否有助于提高沟通技巧。参与者被随机分配到两个组之一：仅由教师授课（TCT）组或机器人介导的沟通练习（RMC）组。TCT组的参与者从他们的老师那里上了一堂关于沟通技巧的课。RMC组的参与者，除了由老师授课外，还两两分组，在4周内每周通过遥控机器人相互交流一次（共五次课程）。总共有20名ASD患者参与了这项研究。单因素方差分析显示，在自我评分方面（F = 6.583；p = 0.019），在向他人描述自己想法方面有显著更大的改善，在自我评分方面（F = 5.635；p = 0.029）以及在老师评分方面（F = 5.333；p = 0.033），在倾听他人想法或感受方面也有显著更大的改善。正如预期的那样，在一次课程中使用该系统进行训练的积极性得到了维持。总体而言，这项研究表明我们的系统有助于提高沟通技巧（例如，倾听他人的想法或感受）。在疫情条件下教授沟通技巧很重要，这项研究证明了使用遥控机器人进行沟通训练的可行性。
