How one year with an in-home robot helps children with autism
In this testimonial, Rachel Ricci and her family share their experience of one year of using the in-home, educational autism robot QTrobot, with their son Caden. Through Rachel’s family’s experiences, we dive into how an in-home robot helps parents support their children on the autism spectrum gain new life skills.
“We’ve had QTrobot for more than one year, and it’s just been wonderful. The robot sessions are now a part of our family’s routine. Typically, we do half an hour a day after school. Sometimes Caden doesn’t want to go to school or therapy, but he loves the robot. He knows that it’s part of his routine and looks forward to the sessions with his robot friend. He even tells me sometimes that it’s time for the robot session.”
Review of a year with an in-home robot, helping children with autism
When school got shut down or teachers went online with Zoom, all of this proved to be ineffective for the majority of our special needs students. Kids stopped communicating the way they used to communicate. There were a lot more behaviors because they were home, they were out of routine. Also, kids were a lot more stressed and acting out in certain ways.
Having QTrobot during the pandemic was very important. If anything, we were able to focus more on our educational goals alongside the robot.
For example, Caden has learnt about the restaurant and what you are there for. The situation will be that the family’s in a restaurant, and QTrobot asks to tell three things about the family and the restaurant. It forces him to push himself. Now he knows that when we’re going to a restaurant, it’s not just about getting a pizza and going home. Now he knows, we’re in a restaurant, and we’re happy to be there. He knows that the person that’s going to come to our table is a waiter. He knows that the person in the back is going to be the chef who’s going to make us a pizza. It’s like a whole global way of learning. Whereas before when we would go pick up a pizza, that was it. Now because of QTrobot, Caden understands the process of getting a pizza.
Learning social skills at home from QTrobot for education of children with autism
Last but not least, I want to enhance the caring team of special education professionals, who are behind the QTrobot. The team at LuxAI has been caring about us, looking at Caden’s results, giving me feedback and helping me to use the right activities in the program the whole time.
I also find that QTrobot is very inclusive for all types of learners, because it comes with two tablets with visual support. So if a child is nonverbal or minimally verbal, they can use the visual support of the learner tablet and their own communication device to answer. You work with the educator tablet and learner tablet together.
As with any new tool, it’s a child-by-child base to find the best time for learning and build up tolerance. I think the robot is very engaging and because QTrobot is friendly looking, it is very easy for a child to approach.
