Students with learning disabilities (LD) struggle with specific skills such as reading, writing, and math, and often require additional individualized support to fill educational gaps. A team of researchers and experts have discovered that cute little robots may help children with learning disabilities stay focused.
Students with learning disabilities are easily distracted. This means you may struggle to stay focused on your assignments, fidget, or refuse to complete your work. One-to-one interventions have been shown to benefit students with LD.
Researchers have explored introducing social robots into classrooms to provide personalized support to children with and without LD, but most of the research to date has focused on children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). was focused on the children of Little research has been done using robots to assist her LD child in educational settings.
Three engineering researchers from the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, two experts from the Learning Disabilities Association in Vancouver, Canada, and QT for humanoid robots.
QT was “born” in 2016. The brainchild of scientists Dr. Pouyan Ziafati and Dr. Aida Nazarikhorram, his QT was the first robot developed specifically as a tool to assist children with ASD. It can gesture with its head and arms, show facial expressions, and speak. Funded by the University of Luxembourg, the two founded his LuxAI, which develops and builds social robots. Ziafati and his Nazarikhorram explain the robot in the video below.
LuxAI: QTRobot – Humanoid Robot for Autistic Children
Based on previous research, the team wanted to analyze how students with LD interacted with social robots and how introducing robots into the classroom impacted students and teachers.
Sixteen students aged 7 to 12 with suspected or confirmed LD were enrolled in the new study because they had known reading difficulties. Eight conducted sessions with her QT robot, while the remaining eight of him acted as controls.
Researchers developed a web application interface for instructors and provided protocols for students including warm-up activities, games, and breathing exercises. The application loaded onto the tablet and allowed the instructor to control her QT robot.
While the instructor controlled the robot, the QT acted autonomously when triggered by the instructor. The robot set goals and used strategies such as games, jokes, breathing exercises, and body movements to redirect students’ attention if they were off track.
Instructors recorded interactions, including whether the educational goals of the session were met, the amount of time students spent away from the task, and the redirection strategies used. Students were able to provide feedback on their experience with the robot.
This study showed that students who attended QT sessions exhibited less non-work behavior and greater engagement. The student found the robot to be friendly, intelligent, and fun, and he will be happy to join QT in future sessions.
Feedback from instructors indicates that most acknowledged that robotic interventions were effective and helpful in keeping students focused and engaged.
“There is definitely great potential for using robots in public education systems,” said Kerstin Dautenhahn, PhD, professor of electrical and computer engineering and study author. “Overall, the findings suggest that robots have a positive effect on students.”
Further studies using QT are planned to further investigate the utility of robot-assisted learning for children with learning disabilities.
The study was published in a journal social robotics.
Source: University of Waterloo
