15.1 Introduction

Creating the abilities of the special needs children’s day by day life is truly a test as each of them has diverse symptoms and is remarkable in their own particular ways. To help improve their life’s quality, there are few real zones of education that must be thought to. Those ranges are communication, social and independence. Special needs children have an alternate route in learning and tolerating data that is different from normal children. The primary goal of this research is to enhance the teaching and learning experience of the special needs children from the fundamental methodologies and therapies. Many studies have previously proposed robotic approach as alternative therapy tool to improve social interaction skills and as well as reducing the emotional problem among the special needs children [2-4]. This is because robot has no feeling and can perform repetitive actions without getting bored or stressed. The proposed solution is to develop an LEGO robot to assist teachers, therapists as well as parents to improve social interaction skills among special needs children. This tool is not intended to replace the teachers and therapist but rather as an assistive tool.

15.2 Case Study - Autism

Autism is a complex neurobehavioral disorder that includes impairments in social interaction and developmental language and communication skills combined with rigid and repetitive behaviours [5]. Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) refers to the wide range of symptoms, skills and level of impairment or disability which include Asperger’s and Kanner’s Syndrome [6]. Among early signs of ASD is persistent deficit in social communication and interaction, repetitive patterns of behaviour, interests or activities and low ability in understanding multiple instructions. Typically, symptoms are presence in the first two years of a child’s life [7]. Until today, the medical society is unable to confirm that the genetic factor is the main cause of ASD [8]. There is no specific medical treatment to cure autism, but many strategies and treatment options are available for autistic children [9]. Early diagnosis and correct therapy would help young children with autism to develop their full potential. Most current therapy methods aimed to improve the overall ability of the autistic children. As the number of children with autism has risen dramatically over the past couple of decades, experts have discovered that the earlier specialized therapy can be initiated; the outcome can be significantly improved [10]. The proposed approach is tested on autistic children at selected special schools and centers in Malaysia [11].

15.3 Movitations

Inspired by the difficulties of the observed current therapy methods and from the literature studies, a new and sustainable approach using robotic technology is proposed. The robotic intervention in nurturing autistic children has been very helpful in enhancing reading skills and generalizing knowledge for young pupils with autism. The sequence, progressive development is well defined and simple for therapists and parents to amend and keep track of the child’s improvement. A rising comprehension of the robotic learning practice of autistic children is getting more attention from academic society. Autistic children go through their day by day activities by their weak senses that can be further enhanced with the aid of robotics [4]. It reduces the tension for them to rekindle what happens later, give a concise and clear path between actions, and aid them to be independent. The nonverbal signs shown by the robots to them can last a long time since they have a habit of repeating on every action they learnt [12].

Thus, robotic engagement has causes the evolution of education practices amongst autistic children. LEGO therapy is one of the current treatments for learning among disabled group of children including the autistic children. The LEGO therapy can improve cognitive development, creativity and hand-eye coordination while improving social skills when played together in a team [13, 14]. In this traditional LEGO therapy, children are normally supervised by assigned therapists. Our proposed method is to automate the LEGO therapy by using the LEGO Mindstorms, a programmable LEGO toolkit as a teaching and learning aid for the autism therapist. Our method is referred as the RoboTherapist that will adapt the ability to teach the basic foundation of knowledge through observation and hand-eye coordination with the supportive function from their attracted repetitive behaviors.

15.4 Proposed Approach

As the fourth industrial revolution (IR 4.0) and its embedded technology diffusion progress is expected to grow exponentially in terms of technical change and socioeconomic impact, we introduce a holistic approach that encompasses innovative and sustainable system solutions for special needs children [15]. In this article, a robot known as RoboTherapist using LEGO Mindstorms EV3 to teach autistic kids to differentiate shapes and encourage the kids to draw basic shapes correctly. It is a new approach and never been applied in special educations in Malaysia.

The RoboTherapist will be placed on a flat whiteboard and detect color by using color sensor that has been programmed in the LEGO Mindstorms EV3 Software. When the RoboTherapist detects the color on the whiteboard, it will start to draw shapes as preprogrammed. It will keep on looping until the user click end program. The association of colors and shapes are programmed as follows:

The mechanism used by the RoboTherapist is the fixed rotation of the motor steering to draw each shape shown in Figure 15.1. The following figures illustrate the movement of RoboTherapist:

The flow chart in Figure 15.2 shows the flow of the overall program. RoboTherapist initiates by detecting the color read by the color sensor and draw the shapes as preprogrammed in Figure 15.2.

Then, it will keep on looping until the stop button is pressed. The special needs children will observe the teaching from the RoboTherapist guided by the teachers. Their understanding is tested by a manual test designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the robotic approach.

15.5 Results and Discussions

Initially, before the test was carried out, a pre-selection test was done to makes sure whether the test candidates are fit for the test or otherwise. In the pre-selection, the potential candidates are asked to tinker with the RoboTherapist and their responses are recorded. If they can handle the robots well, then they are selected. This effort is highly crucial to avoid unnecessary damage on the robot by highly uncontrolled kids (a normal behaviour for some autistic children). Once selected, they will seat for the actual test where the therapist will assist the children to RoboTherapist. The comparative results between the traditional learning method and the robotic approach are presented. From the survey conducted we can see that most of the children with autism will get easily distracted, need to repeat several times in making them understand. It is very challenging in attracting and retaining the autistic children attention, especially in learning.

We can also conclude that most of the major challenge in teaching the autistic children falls under ”Social Communication” where the children find it hard in letting people to control their emotion and also behavior. This happens because for them it is difficult to understand and follow the instructions given by the teachers. Then, the survey continues with the benefits of implementing or introducing the learning method with robot as a medium in teaching the autistic children. As we can see and observe from the results below, most of the respondents agree with the implementation of Robot in teaching basic shapes to the autistic children.

Most of the respondents agreed that the teaching approach using robot is the best assistive tool for teaching the autistic children. In addition, below are the opinions shared by the adult respondents (teachers, parents and caretakers) throughout the survey. As the autistic children can easily get distracted therefore more attention are needed when teaching them. Thus, with the new teaching and therapy method by introducing the robot to the autistic children, attracts the children’s attention and making learning basic shapes fun and easy.

Following this, observation and assessment was conducted in a selected school. Five selected respondents participated voluntarily (refer to Table 15.1) with the assistance of a well-trained teacher. The results gathered from the observation and assessment were then analyzed and discuss in the following paragraphs.

15.6 Robotic Intervention Enhance Autistic Students’ Engagement, Interaction and Focus

It was observed that the traditional method that have been used in teaching the autistic children in learning basic shapes, which is by using shape cards and whiteboard creates a monotonous and mundane learning environment. All students have to sit and listen to the teacher and focus on the drawn shapes on whiteboard or the shapes being shown on the cards. Students were quiet and seems not interested after 5 minutes, as shown in Figure 15.8.

Throughout the observation, the traditional learning could only sustain the concentration of autistic children in learning within 10 minutes. After that, the autistic children start to lose their interest in learning. This is due to the fact that, the autistic children have the tendency to engage in repetitive behavior and attention (Autism Speacks Inc., 2017). As shown in Figure 15.9, the children tend to lost interest when they did not get attention from the teacher.

Contrary to the traditional learning, learning using Roboshapes creates a different and more positive atmosphere. From the observation throughout the learning process, the autistic children seem more attracted to learn with the robot as all of them can maintain to learn basic shapes with the robot for more than 20 minutes. From the Figure 15.10, we can see that all the autistic children are excited and attracted to learn with the Robot.

Moreover, by implementing robot in assisting the teacher in teaching, the learning process held in the classroom seems more active. The students were pro-active in asking questions, suggesting new things and idea. This is because they are adopting a different style of learning basic shapes by learning-by-doing thus, the children are the one who are really eager to learn and want to see the action done by the robot. The teacher as well as some parents did gave a positive feedback from the robotic intervention. It was highlighted that the implementation of EV3 Robot in teaching basic shapes to the autistic children is much more beneficial and gives such positive feedback from the children themselves. For example, from the Figure 15.11 it was shown that the autistic children took a pro-active step to command the robot to draw shapes by putting the color sensor of the robot at the starting point without being asked to. This shows that students were more engaged in learning.

After both learning process (i.e. traditional and robotic intervention) were completed, the students were given two assessment tests to see the impact of learning basic shapes, as shown in Figure 15.12. The first test is relating to the content of the traditional module, while the second test is relating to the robotic intervention learning content. The results were then collected and analyzed to see the differences and impact of both methods. The results were presented and discussed in the next paragraphs.

Table 15.2 shows the results of assessment conducted after the students completed both the traditional learning and with the assistance of Roboshapes. The ’traditional method’ column presents the results of the assessment (i.e. Test 1) that was conducted based on the modules taught by the teacher using cards and whiteboard. Following this, the column ’robot method‘ presents two assessment results (i.e. Test 2 & Test 3) based on the modules taught by the Roboshapes. Referring to Table 15.2, the average score for Test 1 (i.e. traditional learning) was 90%, while the average score for Test 2 and Test 3 (i.e. learning with the assistance of Roboshapes) were 100%. This shows that students learn better when the teaching and learning was assisted by the Robot.

As mentioned by the teacher, the autistic students learn better by learning through robotic intervention. This is due to the fact that they find it interesting were attracted to the learning approach. For example, to make the autistic children more attracted in learning, it is found that they like to receive compliments. Those compliments will make them feel more excited and motivated to learn. Since Roboshapes never fail to give them compliments such as ”Well done!”, ”Good!” and ”Congratulations!”, the students feel engaged and attracted to learn more. However, it is noted that it is important to ensure that the learning process of the autistic children to be conducted in a conducive environment (e.g. not hot or noisy, morning time etc.). This is to ensure that learning process could be run smoothly.

15.7 Conclusion

There are numerous approaches to teach autistic children in a more engaging manner and this study has shown that robotic intervention seems to be very promising. From the observation and results of the test assessments, it shows that the implementation of robot in assisting the teacher in teaching leads to more effective learning experience. This could be seen from students’ behavior whom are more engaged, interested and focused. Further, the sustenance in learning and focus-learning time span is longer with robotic intervention.

On the other note, having robots as a teaching and learning tool opens up many other opportunities. This include skills to build and construct robots based on creativity to teachers and the interested autistic children. They could also use it for playing and distressing themselves. This definitely creates a better teaching and learning in class experiences for the special needs children.

In conclusion, an extension to the current way of teaching and learning for the special needs students should not be left unexplored. Although the schools and parents had to take risks in exploring the best support for this group of children, it is important to note that this group of students deserve relevant and quality experience in the endeavor of learning. Therefore, it is hoped that more future studies will be conducted towards exploring better opportunities in improving this group of students in learning so that they could also embrace the wave of IR 4.0.

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