My qualifications and many
years of work experience lie in two disciplines: Computer
Science (since 1980) and Dance Movement Therapy (since 1992).
I have completed my PhD research degree in the school of
Computer Science at the University of Hertfordshire, bringing
together my expertise and experience in these two disciplines.
My research, which started in 2002 in
the Aurora Project, investigates the
potential use of robots as therapeutic or educational 'toys'
specifically for use by children with autism. The research
focuses on ways that robotic systems can engage autistic
children in simple interactive activities, with the aim of
encouraging basic communication and social interaction
skills.
Over the years, I was the team leader of the UH’s research team participated in the European
FP6, FP7 & Horizon2020 projects IROMEC, ROBOSKIN and BabyRobot.
The IROMEC project acknowledged the important role of play in child development and has investigated how robotic toys can empower children
with cognitive, developmental, or physical impairments to discover the range of play styles from solitary to social and cooperative play.
In the ROBOSKIN project, using our humanoid robot Kaspar, the team has helped to develop cognitive mechanisms that
use tactile feedback to improve human-robot interaction capabilities particularly in the application domain of robot assisted play for
children with autism
The BabyRobot project focused on child-robot communication and collaboration,
and developed the required technologies in order to develop specific socio-affective, communication and collaboration skills.
Implementing these technologies on Kaspar, the team further developed Child-Robot Interaction Scenarios and run longitudinal studies specifically
to assist children with autism in developing Visual Perspective Taking skills.
My recent work, part of the Erasmus+ projects SMART and EMBOA, and the KASPAR project, further investigated robot-assisted
therapy for children with autism with the humanoid robot Kaspar. The SMART project has developed and used intervention protocol where there
is a synergy between a humanoid robot and a personal mobile device as a novel intervention tool for children with Autism.
The project EMBOA- ‘Affective loop in Socially Assistive Robotics as an intervention for Children with Autism’, implemented and evaluated the
feasibility of applying emotion recognition technologies in robot-supported intervention for children with autism.
Within the KASPAR project, we have continued the investigation of robot assisted therapy in two main studies – ‘Kaspar Explain’ (KE) and
Kaspar for Speech and Language therapy (SLC).
Kaspar Explain project - studied whether explicit causal explanations by the robot in robot assisted intervention can improve
the Visual Perspective Taking (VPT ) skills of children with autism. Results identified multiple interaction categories where causal explanation
by the robot contributed substantially to the children’s understanding of VPT.
The SLC study - Coupling the Kaspar research team’s experience with the expertise of speech and language communication specialists,
we have conducted a thorough feasibility study examining how Kaspar can be used to support and provide SLC therapies to children with learning difficulties.
The news
article, released by Reuters can be seen here. The video can be seen here.
Academic Interest:
·
Human Robot Interaction
(HRI) with specific interest in the application of robotic
systems in rehabilitation, therapy and education
·
Autism therapy
·
Dance Movement Therapy
Academic
Qualifications:
1980 - Diploma ('HND' equivalent )
in Computing, Practical Engineering College, Negev University
1990 - BA
Combined Studies, Majoring in Dance, Middlesex University
1992 - Post
Graduate Diploma Dance Movement Therapy - St. Albans
College of Art & Design
1998 - MSc
Computer Science - University of Hertfordshire
2005 - PhD
research degree in Computer Science - University of
Hertfordshire, Title: 'A humanoid Robot as assistive
technology for Encouraging Social Interaction Skills in
children with autism'.
XUP
Career History:
- 1981-1984:
Manof Systems, Software Developer and International Customer
Support Analyst of message switching systems, Tel-Aviv.
- 1984-1986:
Communication Support Analyst - Societe Generale Bank,
London
- 1986-1988:
Senior Systems Analyst - Bank of America, London
- 1988 -1996
Estate Manager - Eminent Production, Essex
- 1997-1998:
MSc Degree Course Computer Science. As the final year
project I developed a prototype flight simulator for pilots
to train in instrument flying procedures.
- 1998 -
2002: Logica - IT Consultant - various international projects.
- October
2002 - Sept. 2005: PhD Research - School of Computer
Science- University of Hertfordshire
- Sept 2005 -
Dec 2006 : Associate Lecturer / Research Fellow -
University of Hertfordshire
- 2007
to-date: Senior Research Fellow - University of
Hertfordshire
Dance Therapy and Dance in
the Community activities (on part-time basis)
- 1985 - 1986:
Teaching Electrobics courses and workshops at Pineapple
Studios , as well as in community centres in north and
south London.
- 1990 - Creative
dance community workshop for people with learning
difficulties - Cambridge
- 1991 - 1993: Dance
Therapy and Creative Dance movement sessions for
people with mental handicap - Orford House, Essex
- 1988 - 1994:
Teaching and leading creative dance workshops- Eminent
Theatre (a theatre group)
- 1994 - 2002: Leading
various dance classes and workshops with Emin Arts,
a charity that promotes the education of the arts, and
assisting with Touchdown Dance , a charity that promotes
dance work with visually impaired people.
- 2002 - 2003: Dance
movement therapy and creative dance workshop at SENSE -
Barnet (a day centre for adults with severe
physical, visual and mental disabilities.
XUP
Scientific
Publications:
Book Chapters:
- Robins,
B., & Dautenhahn, K. (2019). "The social robot Kaspar
interacts with children with Autism. Views from parents and
teachers". In: Besio, S. & Caldin, R. (Eds.). La pedagogia
speciale in dialogo con altre discipline. Intersezioni,
ibridazioni e alfabeti possibili. Milano, Guerini &
Associati, pp. 71-84. ISBN: 978-88-8107-433-4
- Paul and Dickerson and Ben Robins (2017). “Conversation
Analysis with Children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder and
Limited Verbal Ability” In M. O'Reilly, J.N. Lester, T.
Muskett (Eds), A Practical Guide to Social Interaction
Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, Palgrave Macmillan UK,
2017
- Paul
Dickerson and Ben Robins (2015). " Looking or
Spotting ". in The Palgrave Handbook of Child Mental
Health . (September 2015); p59–78. Palgrave Macmillan.
- Aude
Billard, Annalisa Bonfiglio, Giorgio Cannata, Piero Cosseddu,
Torbjørn S. Dahl, Kerstin Dautenhahn, Fulvio Mastrogiovanni,
Giorgio Metta, Lorenzo Natale, Ben Robins, Lucia Seminara and
Maurizio Valle, (2013) The ROBOSKIN Project: Challenges and
Results. In Romansy-19 “ Robot Design, Dynamics and
Control, CISM International Centre for Mechanical
Sciences Volume 544, Vincent Padois, Philippe Bidaud, and
Oussama Khatib (Eds.), pp351-358, Springer, 2013.
- Ben Robins,
Kerstin Dautenhahn, Rene te Boekhorst, Aude Billard (2004) Effects of
repeated exposure to a humanoid robot on children with
autism. In S. Keates, J. Clarkson, P.
Langdon and P. Robinson (Eds.) Designing a More Inclusive
World, Springer Verlag, London, pp. 225-236. This paper
won the best paper award at CWUAAT (Cambridge
Workshop on Universal Access and Assistive Technology),
Cambridge , UK , 22-24 March 2004.
Journal Articles:
- Landowska, A., Karpus, A., Zawadzka, T., Robins, B., Barkana, D. E., Kose, H.,
Zorcec, T. & Cummins, N.,(2022), Automatic Emotion Recognition in Children with Autism: A Systematic Literature Review.
In: Sensors. 22 (4), pp. 1649
- Bartl-Pokorny, K. D., Uluer, P., Barkana, D. E., Baird, A., Kose, H., Zorcec, T., Robins, B., Schuller, B., Landowska, A., & Pykala, M.(2021).
Robot-Based Intervention for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Literature Review. IEEE Access 2021 Vol.9, Pp. 165433-16545
- Dag Sverre Syrdal, Kerstin Dautenhahn, Ben Robins, Efstathia
Karakosta, and Nan Cannon-Jones (2020), Kaspar in the wild:
Experiences from deploying a small humanoid robot in a nursery
school for children with autism. Paladyn, Journal of
Behavioral Robotics 2020 Vol. 11 (1) P 301–326
- Wood, L., Dautenhahn, K., Rainer, A., Robins, B., Lehmann,
H., Syrdal, D. S. (2020), Robot-Mediated interviews: A
field trial with a potential real-world user. Interaction
Studies.Vol. 21:2 (2020) pp. 243–267
- Landowska A., Robins B. (2020) Robot Eye Perspective in
Perceiving Facial Expressions in Interaction with Children
with Autism. In: Barolli L., Amato F., Moscato F., Enokido T.,
Takizawa M. (eds) Web, Artificial Intelligence and Network
Applications. WAINA 2020. Advances in Intelligent Systems and
Computing, vol 1150. Springer, Cham March 2020
- Abolfazl Zaraki, Mehdi Khamassi,·Luke J. Wood, Gabriella
Lakatos, Costas Tzafestas, Farshid Amirabdollahian, Ben
Robins, Kerstin Dautenhahn (2019), A Novel Reinforcement-Based
Paradigm for Children to Teach the Humanoid Kaspar Robot;
International Journal of Social Robotics (IJSR) Nov. 2019.
- Karakosta, Efstathia & Dautenhahn, Kerstin & Syrdal,
Dag Sverre & Wood, Luke & Robins, Ben. (2019). Using
the humanoid robot Kaspar in a Greek school environment to
support children with Autism Spectrum Condition. Paladyn,
Journal of Behavioral Robotics. 10 (1): 298-317 Sep. 2019
- Luke J. Wood, Abolfazl Zaraki, Ben Robins, Kerstin
Dautenhahn1 (2019), Developing Kaspar: A Humanoid Robot for
Children with Autism. International Journal of Social
Robotics(IJSR) July 2019.
- Luke J Wood, Ben Robins, Gabriella
Lakatos, Dag Sverre Syrdal, Abolfazl Zaraki, Kerstin
Dautenhahn (2019), Developing a protocol and experimental
setup for using a humanoid robot to assist children with
autism to develop visual perspective taking skills. in
Paladyn 10(1):167-179 · March 2019 .
- Ben Robins, Kerstin Dautenhahn (2018),
Kaspar the social robot and ways it may help children with
Autism – an overview. ENFANCE, Jan-Mar 2018(1), pp 91-101,
UNIVERSITAIRES DE FRANCE .
- Silvana Mengoni, Karen Irvine, Deepshikha Thakur, Garry
Barton, Kerstin Dautenhahn, Karen Guldberg, Ben Robins, David
Wellsted, and Shivani Sharma, (2017) ‘Feasibility study of a
randomised controlled trial to investigate the effectiveness
of using a humanoid robot to improve the social skills of
children with autism spectrum disorder (Kaspar RCT): a study
protocol’, BMJ Open, 2017 Vol. 7(6)
- Luke Wood, Hagen Lehmann, Kerstin
Dautenhahn, Ben Robins, Austen Rainer, Dag Syrdal (2016)
Robot-mediated interviews for children with autism: What do
potential users think? Interacton Studies 17:3: 439-461
- Ben
Robins, Kerstin Dautenhahn (2014) Tactile Interactions with a
Humanoid Robot - Novel Play Scenario Implementations with
Children with Autism. International Journal of Social Robotics
(IJSR), Vol. 6(3), pp. 397-415
- Joshua Wainer,
Ben Robins, Farshid Amirabdollahian, Kerstin Dautenhahn (2014)
Using the humanoid robot KASPAR to autonomously play triadic
games and facilitate collaborative play among children with
autism. IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development
(TAMD), Vol. 6(3) pp. 183-199
- Sandra Costa,
Hagen Lehmann, Kerstin Dautenhahn, Ben Robins, Filomena Soares
(2014) Using a humanoid robot to elicit body awareness and
appropriate physical interaction in children with autism .
International Journal of Social Robotics Publisher: Springer.
- Leighter,
S., Wainer, J., Wood, N., Dautenhahn, K. & Robins, B.
(2014) The Robot Club: Robots as agents to improve the social
skills of young people on the autistic spectrum. In : Autism .
37
- Joshua Wainer,
Kerstin Dautenhahn, Ben Robins, Farshid Amirabdollahian (2013)
A pilot study with a novel setup for collaborative play of the
humanoid robot KASPAR with children with autism. International
Journal of Social Robotics (IJSR), Vol. 6 (1), pp. 45-65.
- Luke Wood,
Kerstin Dautenhahn, Austen Rainer, Ben Robins, Hagen Lehmann,
Dag S. Syrdal (2013) Robot-Mediated Interviews - How effective
is a humanoid robot as a tool for interviewing young
children?. PLoS ONE, 8(3)
- Paul Dickerson, Ben Robins, Kerstin
Dautenhahn (2013) Where the action is: A conversation analytic
perspective on interaction between a humanoid robot, a
co-present adult and a child with an ASD. Interaction Studies
14(2), pp. 297-316.
- Ben Robins, Kerstin Dautenhahn, Ester
Ferrari, Gernot Kronreif, Barbara Prazak-Aram, Patrizia Marti,
Iolanda Iacono, Gert Jan Gelderblom, Tanja Bernd, Francesca
Caprino and Elena Laudanna (2012), Scenarios of robot-assisted
play for children with cognitive and physical disabilities.
Interaction Studies 13(2), pp.189-23
- Ben
Robins, Ester Ferrari, Kerstin Dautenhahn, Gernot Kronrief,
Barbara Prazak, Gert-Jan Gerderblom, Francesca Caprino, Elena
Laudanna (2010) Human-centred Design Methods: Developing
Scenarios for Robot Assisted Play Informed by User Panels and
Field Trials. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies
IJHCS, 2010. 68(12), 873-898
- Joshua Wainer,
Ester Ferrari, Kerstin Dautenhahn, Ben Robins (2009 )
The effectiveness of using a robotics class to foster
collaboration among groups of children with autism in an
exploratory study. Journal of Personal and Ubiquitous
Computing, Special issue on "Design for Social Interaction
through Physical Play"
- Ben Robins,
Kerstin Dautenhahn (2007) Encouraging social interaction
skills in children with autism playing with robots: A case
study evaluation of triadic interactions involving children
with autism, other people (peers and adults) and a robotic
toy. ENFANCE, Vol 59(1) Jan-Mar 2007, pp 72-81,
UNIVERSITAIRES DE FRANCE
- A. Billard, B.
Robins, K. Dautenhahn, J. Nadel (2006) Building Robota, a
Mini-Humanoid Robot for the Rehabilitation of Children with
Autism . RESNA Assistive Technology Journal.
- Ben
Robins, Kerstin Dautenhahn, Janek Dubowsky (2006), Does
appearance matter in the interaction of children with autism
with a humanoid robot? Interaction Studies 7:3, pp.
479-512
- Ben Robins, Kerstin Dautenhahn, Rene te
Boekhorst. and Aude Billard (2005), Robotic assistants in
therapy and education of children with autism: Can a
small humanoid robot help encourage social interaction
skills? Universal Access in the Information Society
(UAIS), Vol 4(2) Special Edition, Springer- Verlag,
- Ben Robins,
Paul Dickerson, Penny Stribling and Kerstin Dautenhahn (2004)
Robot-mediated joint attention in children with autism: A
case study in robot-human interaction, Interaction
Studies 5:2, pp. 161-198
Conference Proceedings:
- Araujo, H., Holthaus, P., Sarda Gou, M., Lakatos, G., Galizia, G., Wood, L., Robins, B., Mousavi, M. & Amirabdollahian, F. (2023)
Kaspar Causally Explains: Causal Explanation in an Assistive Robot for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Social Robotics: 14th International Conference, ICSR 2022. Springer-Verlag, (Berlin-Heidelberg), Feb 2023 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science).
- Sarda Gou, M., Lakatos, G., Holthaus, P., Wood, L., Mousavi, M., Robins, B. & Amirabdollahian, F. (2022)
Towards understanding causality – a retrospective study of scenarios that trigger explanations in interactions between a humanoid robot
and autistic children. Proc.31th IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN 2022), Naples, Italy
- S.N.B. Aktas, P. Uluer, B. Coskun, E. Toprak; D. Erol Barkana; H. Kös, T. Zorcec, B.Robins and A. Landowska; (2022)
"Stress Detection of Children With ASD Using Physiological Signals", proc.The 30th IEEE conference on Signal Processing and Communications Applications Conference (SIU), 2022, Safranbolu, Turkey
- Agnieszka Landowska, Ben Robins, (2020), Robot Eye Perspective in Perceiving Facial Expressions in Interaction
with Children with Autism, in Proc. 34th International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications, WAINA 2020.
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol. 1150 AISC, Springer, pp. 1287-1297.
- Lakatos, Gabriella & Wood, Luke & Zaraki, Abolfazl
& Robins, Ben & Dautenhahn, Kerstin &
Amirabdollahian, Farshid. (2019). Effects of Previous Exposure
on Children’s Perception of a Humanoid Robot. In Proc. 11th
International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR 2019),
Madrid, Spain, November 2019, pp.14-23
- Irvine, K, Sharma, S, Wellsted, D, Mengoni, S, Robins, B
& Dautenhahn, K (2019), 'Study to investigate the
effectiveness of using a humanoid robot (Kaspar) to improve
the social skills of children with an Autism Spectrum
Disorder: a randomised controlled feasibility trial'. In Proc.
12th Autism-Europe international Congress, Nice, France , Sep.
2019
- Moros, Sílvia & Wood, Luke & Robins, Ben &
Dautenhahn, Kerstin & Castro-González, Álvaro. (2019).
Programming a Humanoid Robot with the Scratch Language. Proc.
International Conference on Robotics in Education (RiE 19’),
April 2019, Vienna, Austria
- Tatjana Zorcec, Ben Robins, Kerstin Dautenhahn (2018) .
Getting Engaged: Assisted Play with a Humanoid Robot Kaspar
for Children with Severe Autism. In Proc. 10th International
Conference ICT Innovations 2018, Ohrid, Macedonia, September
2018
- A. Zaraki, M.
Khamassi, L.J. Wood, G. Lakatos, C. Tzafestas, B. Robins, K.
Dautenhahn (2018) . A Novel Paradigm for Typically Developing
and Autistic Children as Teachers to the Kaspar Robot Learner.
In Proc. 3rd Workshop on Behavior Adaptation, Interaction and
Learning for Assistive Robotics in Conjunction with IEEE
Ro-Man2018,August 2018, Nanjing, China
- A. Zaraki, L.J.
Wood, B. Robins, K. Dautenhahn (2018). "Development of a
Semi-Autonomous Robotic System to Assist Children with Autism
in Developing Visual Perspective Taking Skills". In Proc. The
27th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human
Interactive Communication (Ro-Man2018).August 2018, Nanjing,
China.
- L.J. Wood, B. Robins, G. Lakatos, D.S.
Syrdal, A. Zaraki, K. Dautenhahn (2018), "Piloting Scenarios
for Children with Autism to Learn About Visual Perspective
Taking". In Proc. Annual Conference Towards Autonomous Robotic
Systems,(TAROS2018), July 18' Bristol, U.K.
- Ben Robins,
Kerstin Dautenhahn, Luke Wood, Abolfazl Zaraki (2017)
Developing Interaction Scenarios with a Humanoid Robot to
Encourage Visual Perspective Taking Skills in Children with
Autism – Preliminary Proof of Concept Tests, In Proc.
The 9th International Conference on Social Robotics,
(ICSR 20017) November 22nd to 24th 2017, Tsukuba, Japan.
- Luke Wood, Abolfazl Zaraki, Michael
Walters, Ori Novanda, Ben Robins, Kerstin Dautenhahn (2017)
The Iterative Development of the Humanoid Robot Kaspar: An
Assistive Robot for Children with Autism. In Proc. The 9th
International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR 2017)
November 22nd to 24th, 2017, Tsukuba, Japan.
- Luke Wood,
Kerstin Dautenhahn, Ben Robins, Abolfazl Zaraki (2017)
Developing Child-Robot Interaction Scenarios with a Humanoid
Robot to Assist Children with Autism in Developing Visual
Perspective Taking Skills. 26th IEEE International Symposium
on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (IEEE RO-MAN
2017), Lisbon, 28 August - 1 September 2017
- A. Zaraki, K. Dautenhahn, L. Wood, O. Novanda, and B. Robins
(2017) Toward autonomous child-robot interaction: Development
of an interactive architecture for the humanoid Kaspar robot,
in Proceedings 3rd Workshop on Child-Robot Interaction at HRI
2017, vol. 3.
https://childrobotinteraction.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/abolfazlzaraki.pdf,
2017, pp. 1–4.
- A. Zaraki, L. Wood, and K. Dautenhahn (2017) Design,
implementation and experimental evaluation of an Iristk-based
deliberative-reactive control architecture for semi-autonomous
child-robot interaction in the real-world settings, in The
UK-RAS Network Conference on Robotics and Autonomous Systems:
Robots Working for and Among Us, vol. 1, 2017, pp. 1–3.
- L. J. Wood, B. Robins, K. Dautenhahn, G. Lakatos, D. Syrdal,
and A. Zaraki (2017) Utilising humanoid robots to assist
children with autism learn about visual perspective taking, in
The UK-RAS Network Conference on Robotics and Autonomous
Systems: Robots Working for and Among Us, vol. 1, 2017, pp.
1–3.
·
Marcus M. Scheunemann,
Kerstin Dautenhahn, Maha Salem, Ben Robins (2016) Utilizing
Bluetooth Low Energy to Recognize Proximity, Touch and Humans.
In 2016 25th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human
Interactive Communication (RO-MAN) (pp. 362--367).
- Luke Wood, Kerstin Dautenhahn, Hagen
Lehmann, Ben Robins, Austen Rainer, Dag Sverre Syrdal (2013)
Robot-Mediated Interviews: Does a robotic interviewer impact
question difficulty and information recovery? 12th European
AAATE (Associated for the Advancement of Assistive Technology
in Europe) Conference, Algarve, Portugal, 19-22
September 2013 .
- Ben Robins, Farshid Amirabdollahian,
Kerstin Dautenhahn, (2013) Investigating Child-Robot
Tactile Interactions:A taxonomical classification of tactile
behaviour of children with autism towards a humanoid robot
, International Conferences on Advances in Computer-Human
Interactions, ACHI 13, February 2013, Nice, France .
- Sandra Costa, Hagen Lehmann, Ben Robins,
Kerstin Dauntenhahn, Filomena Soares (2013) ”Where is your
nose?” - Developing body awareness skills among Children with
Autism using a humanoid robot, Proc. ACHI 2013, The Sixth
International conference on Advances in Computer-Human
Interactions, February 2013, Nice, France. (This paper
won the best paper award).
- Ben Robins, Kerstin Dautenhahn, Paul
Dickerson, (2012) Embodiment and
Cognitive Learning – Can a Humanoid Robot Help Children
with Autism to Learn about Tactile Social Behaviour?,
ICSR12 - International Conference on Social Robotics, October
2012, Chengdu, China
- Farshid Amirabdollahian, Ben Robins, Kerstin
Dautenhahn, Ze Ji (2011) Investigating
tactile event recognition in child-robot interaction for
use in autism therapy. 10th
33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering
in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC'11), Boston, MA, USA
on August 30 - September 3, 2011.
- Iolanda Iacono, Hagen Lehmann, Patrizia Marti,
Ben Robins and Kerstin Dautenhahn (2011) Robots as social mediators for children with
autism - A preliminary analysis comparing two different
robotic platforms. IEEE ICDL -
EPIROB 2011, first Joint IEEE International Conference on
Development and Learning and on Epigenetic Robotics. 24-27th
August, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
- Hagen Lehmann, Iolanda Iacono, Ben Robins,
Patrizia Marti, Kerstin Dautenhahn (2011) 'Make it move': Playing cause and effect games
with a robot companion for children with cognitive
disabilities. 10th ECCE 2011 -
European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics Designing
Collaborative Activities August 24th - 26th, 2011, Rostock,
Germany.
- Joshua Wainer, Kerstin Dautenhahn ,Ben Robins
and Farshid Amirabdollahian (2010) Collaborating with Kaspar: Using an Autonomous
Humanoid Robot to Foster Cooperative Dyadic Play among
Children with Autism. 10th
IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots
(Humanoids 10) December 2010, Nashville, TN
- Ben Robins and Kerstin
Dautenhahn ( 2010) Developing Play Scenarios for
Tactile Interaction with a Humanoid Robot: A Case Study
Exploration with Children with Autism, 2nd
International Conference on Social Robotics, November 2010,
Singapore.
- Ben
Robins, Farshid Amirabdollahian, Ze Ji, Kerstin Dautenhahn (
2010) Tactile interaction with a humanoid robot for
children with autism: A case study analysis involving user
requirements and results of an initial implementation. 19th
IEEE International Workshop on Robot and Human Interactive
Communication (RO-MAN 10) September 2010, Viareggio, Italy.
- Ester Ferrari,
Ben Robins and Kerstin Dautenhahn (2010) “Does it work?” A
framework to evaluate the effectiveness of a robotic toy for
children with special needs. 19th IEEE International
Workshop on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN
10) September 2010, Viareggio, Italy.
- Farshid Amirabdollahian, Ben Robins,
and Kerstin Dautenhahn, (2009) Robotic Skin Requirements
Based on Case Studies on Interacting with Children with
Autism, in “Tactile Sensing” workshop at IEEE
International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids
09) December 2009, Paris, France.
·
Ester
Ferari, Ben Robins, Kerstin Dautenhahn (2009) Therapeutic
and educational objectives in Robot Assisted Play for children
with autism. 18th IEEE International Workshop on
Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN 09) September
2009, Toyama, Japan
·
Ester
Ferari, Ben Robins, Kerstin Dautenhahn (2009) Robot
as a Social Mediator - a Play Scenario Implementation with
Children with Autism. 8th international Conference on
Interaction Design and Children, IDC09 -Workshop
on Creative Interactive Play for Disabled Children
, Como, Italy, June
3-5 2009
·
Ben Robins, Kerstin
Dautenhahn, Paul Dickerson, (2009) From Isolation to
Communication: A Case Study Evaluation of Robot Assisted
Play for Children with Autism with a Minimally Expressive
Humanoid Robot, Proc. the Second International
Conferences on Advances in Computer-Human Interactions, ACHI 09,
February 1-7, 2009 - Cancun, Mexico
·
Josh Wainer, Kerstin
Dautenhahn, Ben Robins (2008) Using robots to foster
collaboration among groups of children with autism in an
after-school class setting: An exploratory study. Proc. of
1st Workshop on Design for Social Interaction through Physical
Play at the 2nd International conference on Fun and Games,
22-24f October 2008, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
·
Ben Robins, Ester
Ferrari, Kerstin Dautenhahn (2008) Developing Scenarios for
Robot Assisted Play. Proc. the 17th IEEE International
Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, (RO-MAN
2008), 1-3 August 2008, Munich , Germany.
·
B. Robins, K. Dautenhahn,
R. te Boekhorst, C. L. Nehaniv (2008) Behaviour Delay and
Robot Expressiveness in Child-Robot Interactions: A User Study
on Interaction Kinesics. Proc. ACM/IEEE 3rd International
Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2008). 12-15 March
2008, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
·
Serenella Besio, Silvia
Dini,Ester Ferrari, Ben Robins (2007) Critical Factors
Involved in Using Interactive Robots for Play Activities of
Children with Disabilities Proc. The 9th European
Conference for the Advancement of Assistive Technology in Europe
(AAATE 2007) , 3-5 October, San-Sebastian, Spain.
·
Ben Robins, Nuno Otero,
Ester Ferrari, Kerstin Dautenhahn (2007) Eliciting
Requirements for a Robotic Toy for Children with Autism -
Results from User Panels. Proc. the 16th IEEE
International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive
Communication, (RO-MAN 2007), 26-29 August 2007, Jeju island,
Korea.
·
Ben Robins, Kerstin
Dautenhahn (2006) The Role of the Experimenter in HRI
Research - a Case Study Evaluation of Children with Autism
Interacting with a Robotic Toy. Proc. The 15th IEEE
International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive
Communication (RO-MAN06), Haftield, UK.
·
Megan Davis , Ben Robins,
Kerstin Dautenhahn, Christopher Nehaniv Stuart Powell
(2005), A comparison of interactive and robotic systems in
therapy and education for children with autism. In proc.
Assistive Technology from Virtuality to Reality - 8th European
Conference for the Advancement of Assistive Technology in Europe
AAATE05, Lille , France , 6-9 September, 2005.
·
Ben Robins, Paul
Dickerson, Penny Stribling and Kerstin Dautenhahn (2005), Robots
as embodied beings - Interactionally sensitive body movements in
interactions among autistic children and a robot. In proc. 14th
IEEE International Workshop on Robot and Human Interactive
Communication -RO-MAN05, Nashville , USA , 13-15 August 2005.
·
Ben Robins, Kerstin
Dautenhahn, Janek Dubowsky (2005), Robots as Isolators or
Mediators for Children with Autism? A Cautionary Tale, Proc.
AISB05: Social Intelligence and Interaction in Animals, Robots
and Agents, 12-15 April 2005, Hatfield, UK.
·
Ben Robins, Kerstin
Dautenhahn, Rene te Boekhorst, Aude Billard (2004), Robots as
Assistive Technology - Does Appearance Matter?,
Proc. IEEE Ro-man 2004, 13th IEEE International Workshop on
Robot and Human Interactive Communication September 20-22, 2004
Kurashiki , Okayama Japan. This paper won the best paper
award at the 14th IEEE RO-MAN 2005 international
workshop.
·
Ben Robins, Kerstin
Dautenhahn, Janek Dubowski (2004), Investigating
Autistic Children's Attitudes Towards Strangers with the
Theatrical Robot - A New Experimental Paradigm in
Human-Robot Interaction Studies, Proc. IEEE
Ro-man 2004, 13th IEEE International Workshop on Robot and Human
Interactive Communication September 20-22, 2004 Kurashiki,
Okayama Japan.
·
Kerstin Dautenhahn, Iain
Werry, Aude Billard, Ben Robins, Tamie Salter (2003), Robots
That Autistic Children Can Play With Proc.The 7th
international Congress Autism Europe Lisboa 2003. November 14-17
, 2003 Lisbon , Portugal .
Others:
· Ben Robins, Kerstin Dautenhahn. (2004), Interacting
with robots: Can we encourage social interaction skills in
children with autism? ACM SIGACCESS Accessibility and
Computing archive Issue 80, pp 6-12, ACM Press, New York, USA,
September 2004.
XUP
Invited
Talks & Other Academic Activities:
- Invited speaker at the research colloquium, University of Augsburg, Augsburg, Germany. August 2022
- Invited speaker at the research colloquium, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey. June 2022
- Invited speaker at the research colloquium, Gdansk University of Technology, Gdansk, Poland. June 2022
- Invited Speaker at the international research colloquium
organised by the Centre for Robotics and Neural Systems (CRNS) -University of Plymouth, UK May 2022
- Invited speaker at the research colloquium at the Occupational Therapy dept.,
Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Israel, February 2022
- Invited keynote talk at the Extended Research Project
Conference, University of Roehampton, London, U.K. March 2020
- Invited keynote talk + Kaspar exhibition at ATiA 2020
. Orlando, U.S.A January 2020
- Invited speaker at the workshop “Social Human-Robot
Interaction of Human-care Service Robots” at the IEEE
Ro-Man2019 conference, New-Delhi, India, October 2019
- Invited keynote talk at the Extended Research Project
Annual Conference, University of Roehampton, London,
U.K. March 2019
- Invited keynote speaker at a conference titled " Play in
Autism and beyond: A Froebelian Exploration of Gifts",
Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury, U.K. Dec 2018
- Invited Keynote Speaker at the ‘Autumn school’ of the
Italian Society of Special Education, Bergamo Italy, Nov 2018
- Invited talk at a seminar for researchers, educators and
families of people with disabilities by the Italian
Association of persons with disabilities, Bergamo, Italy, Nov
2018
- Invited keynote speaker at the BAILAR workshop "3rd
Workshop on Behavior Adaptation, Interaction and Learning
for Assistive Robotics" in conjunction with Ro-Man2018
conference, Nanjing, China, August 2018
- Invited keynote speaker at a workshop titled " Ethical
dialogues for developing socially responsible robots for
children with autism", De Montfort University,
Leicester, May 2018
- Invited keynote speaker at the International Conference on
Disability and Rehabilitation, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia , April
2018
- Invited keynote speaker at a workshop on Social Robotics at
the Human and Technology Centre, Eindhoven Technical
University, Eindhoven, The Netherlands , February 2018
- Invited Speaker and Kaspar exhibition at the Science Museum'
s 'Night Owls' event, London, December 2017
- Speaker and exhibitor of Kaspar the Autism Show , Excel ,
London June 2017
- Invited speaker at JSSR 2016 Symposium on Social Robotics,
Abu-Dhabi, November 2016
- Invited
speaker - panel on technology and disabilities , Google
Campus, London November 2016
- Invited keynote
speaker at the plenary meeting – ‘Technology and
children with disabilities’ COST action LUDI,
Malta , October 2016
- Invited keynote
speaker – at a seminar about Autism and
Technology, part of a seminar series funded by ESRC
titled ‘Innovative technologies for autism –
critical reflections on digital bubbles’ , Bournemouth, UK,
(November 2015)
- Invited
keynote speaker at AuTech 2015 –
Autism, Assistive Technologies and Sensory Issues
conference, Manchester, UK. October 2015
- Co-Organiser
of a workshop titled " Technology
and Play for Children with Disabilities” at the 6th International
Conference on Disabilities, “Unity & Diversity in
Action”, Tel Aviv, Israel (June 2015)
- Invited
speaker at a seminar for professional staff at at Beit
Issi Shapiro, Ra'annana, Israel (June 2015)
- Invited
keynote speaker at the international seminar New Friends-
Therapeutic Application of Robots in Healthcare, organised at
Windesheim Flevoland University of Applied Science,
Almere, The Netherlands, September 2014.
- Co-Organiser
of a workshop titled "Taking Care of Each Other:
Synchronisation and Reciprocity for Social Companion Robots,
at ICSR 2013, International Conference on Social Robotics,
27-29 October 2013, Bristol, UK.
- Invited keynote
speaker and robot exhibitor, presenting the work of KASPAR and
children with Autism at a symposium titled “Robots supporting
care”, orgenised for nationwide care professionals by Zuyd
University, the Netherlands, October 2013.
- Orgenised a
workshop titled: "Kaspar, a minimally expressive robot for
robot assisted therapy" at a Summer School on Social
Human-Robot Interaction, Christ's college, Cambridge, UK
August 2013.
- Invited
keynote lecture presenting the work of KASPAR and
children with Autism at a summer course on Robots in
Healthcare, organised at Windesheim Flevoland University of
Applied Science, Almere, The Netherlands, August 2013.
- Robot exhibitor
and presenter of the KASPAR project at COST event "The future
concept and reality of Social Robotics: Challenges, Perception
and Applications" organised by COST (European Cooperation in
Science and Technology), International Press Centre, Brussels
(BE), 10-13 June 2013.
- Invited
speaker at the National Autistic Society – professional
conference, title of talk: "The robot KASPAR as a therapeutic
tool: encouraging social interaction skills in children with
autism", Harrogate, UK, March 2013.
- Invited Speaker
at the Science Museum' s 'LATES' event, London, September 2012
- Organising
a special session on "Situated Interaction and
Embodiment - the use of social robotic systems in education
and care for people with special needs" together with Prof.
Kerstin Dautenhahn at ICSR 2012, International Conference on
Social Robotics, 29-31 October, Chengdu, China.
- Invited speaker
at the International Symposium "From the Lab to Autism
Treatment-Bridging Success", The Institute for Child
Development, Shiba Medical Center, Tel-Hashomer, Israel. 9-10
September 2012.
- Invited speaker
at the National Autistic Society – professional conference,
title of talk: "KASPAR as a therapeutic tool: encouraging
social interaction skills in children with autism",
Manchester, UK, March 2012.
- Invited
speaker at the EU Robotics Forum- workshop on Social Robots
and Social Pedagogical Approaches, Odense, Denmark, March
2012.
- Organised
a tutorial at IEEE RO-MAN 2011 on “Developing Skin-Based
Technologies for Interactive Robots - Challenges in design,
development and the possible integration in therapeutic
environments”, together with Prof. Kerstin Dautenhahn, Dr.
Farshid Abdollahian, Dr. Fulvio Mastrogiovanni and Prof.
Giorgio Cannata , July 2011, Atlanta, GA.
- Invited
speaker at the Robot with Children workshop part of
the 6th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot
Interaction (HRI 2011) March 2011, Lausanne,
Switzerland.
- Organised
a Special session on " Human
Robot Social and Assistive Interaction -
design and implementation challenges in the use of HRI
in assistive technologies for
people with special needs", together with Prof. Kerstin
Dautenhahn, at the 2nd International Conference on Social
Robotics, November 2010, Singapore.
- Invited
speaker at the 2nd International Workshop on "The
Mechanisation of Empathy in Health Care" , Bergamo, Italy,
September 2010.
- Organised
a tutorial at IEEE International Conference on Robotics and
Automation (ICRA 2010 ) on "Robots for children with special
needs: technology and design challenges for an effective
integration in therapeutic and educational environments",
together with Prof. Kerstin Dautenhahn, Prof. Patrizia
Marti and Dr. Gernot Kronrief, May 2010, Anchorage,
Alaska .
- Invited
speaker at WorldORT seminar "Robots in Schools" - 8th
International Annual Hatter Seminar, November 2009,
London, UK.
- Organised a
tutorial at IEEE RO-MAN 2009 on "Developing assistive
technologies for children and adults with special needs: A
user-centred approach", together with Prof. Kerstin
Dautenhahn, Prof. Kazuyoshi Wada and Prof. Patrizia Marti.,
September 2009, Toyama, Japan
- Invited
speaker at a seminar for professional staff at the
program for Children and Young People at Anna Freud Centre,
September 2009, London, UK.
- Organised
a special session on " "The use of robots in play for children
with disabilities “, together with Kersin Dautenhahn, at the
11th IEEE International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics,
ICORR’09, 23-26 June 2009, Kyoto, Japan.
- Invited speaker
at HANDIMATICA 2008 - the 7th National
Exhibition-Conference on Information Technologies for
the Integration of People with Disabilities, 27-29 November
2008, ASPHI
Foundation,
Bolonga, Italy.
- Invited
speaker at the 3rd International Symposium on "Autism Along
Lifespan – New Treatment Horizons", 27-28 February 2008, The
Institute for Child Development, Shiba Medical Center,
Tel-Hashomer, Israel.
- Invited
Speaker at a seminar for professional staff at Marlborough
Family Service , North London NHS foundation Trust -
January 2008 , London, UK.
- Organised a
special session on "Learning and Interaction in Children with
Autism", together with Kersin Dautenhahn, at the 6th IEEE
International Conference on Development and Learning,
ICDL2007, 11-13 July 2007, London, UK
- Organised
a special session on "Robot assisted play", together with
Kerstin Dautenhahn, at the 16th IEEE International Symposium
on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, RO-MAN 2007,
26-29 August 2007, Jeju island, Korea
- Organised a
tutorial "Autism and Affective-Social Computing" together with
Rana el Kaliouby, Rosalind W. Picard, and Kersin Dautenhahn at
the second International Conference on Affective Computing and
Intelligent Interaction (ACII2007) 12-14 September 2007,
Lisbon, Portugal.
- Invited
Lecturer at a seminar at Aalborg
University, March 2007, Esbjerg, Denmark
- Invited
speaker at the conference "technology for children with
ASD" 6th October 2006 , Coventry University,
Coventry, UK.
- Invited
Speaker at the TACT symposium " Thought in Action: a
possible new strategy for early diagnosis of autistic
disorder", 30 May 2006, Campus Bio-Medico
University, Rome, Italy
- Invited speaker
at the "Seminar on Robotics and Computer Science Technologies
for People with Autism", 06 February 2006, University of
Palermo, Sicily, Italy.
- Invited
speaker at the 3rd seminar of the Scottish
Autism Research group (SARG) " From socio-cognitive
research to information technology for autistic spectrum
disorders", 11th November 2005, University of Edinburgh,
Edinburgh, Scotland
- Invited
speaker at the 2nd International Symposium on "New
Technologies for Children's Play", 06 October 2005, Maersk
Institute for Technology, University of Southern
Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
- Invited
speaker at the Vienna Workshop 2004: "Dimensions of
Sociality-Shaping Relationships with Machines", 19-20 November
2004, Austrian
Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Vienna,
Austria.
XUP
Media Coverage:
- Brazil TV FEB 18’
https://noticias.r7.com/domingo-espetacular/videos/robos-humanoides-sao-usados-para-ajudar-o-desenvolvimento-de-criancas-com-autismo-21022018
- BBC2 - Dec 17’ - TV documentary – “Six
Robots and Us”
- Daily Mail Article Dec 17’ -http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5213631/Autistic-boy-5-forms-astonishing-bond-talking-doll.html
- South Korea – Nov 17’ http://dongascience.donga.com/news.php?idx=20652
- AutismEye journal- Spring 17 ,
Issue25 p 16
- Reuters - 31st March 2017: A
news report by Reuters was released . Article can be seen here. The video can be seen
here.
- Daily Mail article MAR 17’ – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4368196/British-robot-helping-autistic-children-social-skills.ht
- Day Nursery Journal – Aug 16
https://www.daynurseries.co.uk/news/article.cfm/id/1577637/Kaspar-the-friendly-robot-teaches-children-human-feelings
- BBC
technology news - 16 May 2015
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32710739
- CNBC
International news report 06 Aug 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZzFWG8OkNE&feature=youtu.be
- ITV1
- 2nd December 2011: ITV1 national television- children
program on technology.
- BBC1
- 19th August 2011: BBC1 television program – The One Show
- C4 -
21th April 2011: TV interview at Fern Britton's show on C4
(click here to
watch)
- BBC1-
16th March 2011: BBC1 television news report (click here to watch).
- ITV -
15th March 2011: ITV television news report .
- AP -
8th March 2011: A news report by Associated Press was
released. (to watch click here).
- AP
7th March 2011: an article by the Associated Press was
reported online by many news sites throughout the world.
- BSN - 22nd May 2009: The
British Satellite News (BSN) reported the work with Kaspar
and children with autism.
- 7th August 2008: the work
with Kaspar and children with autism has been reported
online by Bayerischer Rundfunk, a radio and TV-station
in Germany.
- NHK _
24th May 2008: NHK -Japanese national television, a
documentary program dedicated to out our work
with children with Autism (click here to
watch)
- SAT1 - 24th April 2008: SAT.1:
Planetopia - a science magazine on German television
(click here
to watch with amateur subtitles)
- 16th August 2007: the work
with Kaspar and children with autism has been reported (in
German) in Spiegel Online (to view click
here)
- August 2007 : an
article in 'ZEIT Wissen' magazine - a bimonthly magazine of
the German daily newspaper Die ZEIT, that covers scientific
topics. Schau Mir in Die Augen - article about the use of the
Humanoid robot Kaspar with children with Autism. 5/2007, p
86-91.
- BBC World, - 30th May 2007:
Live interviewes on BBC World Service, BBC Radio 4, and BBC
Three Counties radio stations..
- BBC
- 29th May 2007: BBC1 television news report (click here to watch)
- 3rd
August 2003: an article on the Aurora project in Frankfurter
Allgemine Sonntagszeitung, 3rd August 2003, p 51,
- ZDF- 4th
August 2003: 21.30, 3SAT/ZDF German television station
: Neues Spezial - Geniale Teams: Roboter auf dem Weg
in die autistische Seele, a documentary on Aurora project
- SAT1-14th March
2004: SAT.1: Planetopia - a science magazine on
German television, a program on the newest developments in
robotics had a brief coverage of our work with robots and
autistic children.
XUP