Morales Mayoral Rafael, Logan Samuel W, Fitter Naomi T
Collaborative Robotics and Intelligent Systems Institute (CoRIS), Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, United States.
Disability and Mobility Do-it-Yourself Co-Op, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, United States.
Front Robot AI. 2025 Mar 18;12:1520216. doi: 10.3389/frobt.2025.1520216. eCollection 2025.
Assistive mobile robots can play an important role in supporting individuals with disabilities. While the field of robot control interfaces for individuals with disabilities is growing, there is little work done on such systems for children end users specifically. Accordingly, we pursued the design of an adapted robot control interface for use in child pediatric occupational therapy (OT). Our target end user, a nine-year-old child with cerebral palsy, leveraged the interface to perform instrumental activities of daily living (e.g., play) with a modern mobile manipulator. We used an iterative design process to adjust and improve the interface via input from the participant's caregivers and occupational therapist, as well as objective participant performance data. Furthermore, we tested the participant's ability to utilize our interface by creating two testing cases: a control case (in which our participant performed standard ALD/IADL tasks) and an experimental case (in which our participant performed ADL/IADL practice activities more tailored toward the child). Key insights during the process included the need for sensitivity to taking up space on the child user's existing power wheelchair, the advantages of integrating technologies familiar to the child (e.g., gaming controls, iPads) in our system design, and the potential value of integrating playful mischief (including playful interactions between the child, their caregivers, and their clinicians) as a part of the playbook for pediatric OT. This work can serve to inform and augment new OT strategies for the marginalized population of young children with disabilities.
辅助移动机器人在帮助残疾人方面可以发挥重要作用。虽然面向残疾人的机器人控制接口领域正在不断发展，但专门针对儿童终端用户的此类系统的研究却很少。因此，我们致力于设计一种适用于儿童儿科职业治疗（OT）的机器人控制接口。我们的目标终端用户是一名患有脑瘫的九岁儿童，他利用该接口通过现代移动操纵器进行日常生活中的工具性活动（如玩耍）。我们采用迭代设计过程，根据参与者的护理人员和职业治疗师的意见以及客观的参与者表现数据来调整和改进接口。此外，我们通过创建两个测试案例来测试参与者使用我们接口的能力：一个对照案例（参与者在其中执行标准的日常生活活动/工具性日常生活活动任务）和一个实验案例（参与者在其中执行更适合该儿童的日常生活活动/工具性日常生活活动练习活动）。在此过程中的关键见解包括需要注意在儿童用户现有的电动轮椅上占用空间的敏感性、在我们的系统设计中整合儿童熟悉的技术（如游戏控制器、iPad）的优势，以及将有趣的恶作剧（包括儿童、他们的护理人员和临床医生之间有趣的互动）作为儿科职业治疗手册的一部分的潜在价值。这项工作可为边缘化的残疾幼儿群体提供新的职业治疗策略并加以补充。
