Children with autism spectrum disorders make a fruit salad with Probo, the social robot. An interaction study

This exploratory study aims to put robotics in a clinical framework. It was investigated how children with ASD perform in a play task with a robotic partner compared with a human partner, which impact these two types of interaction have on the children's social behaviors and, whether the robot triggers social interaction with another adult. A repeated measures design was used with one of the largest sample of children with ASD (N=30) declared until now in this field. Most of our outcomes are interesting in that they contradict commonly held assumptions about HRI with children with ASD. Limitations and future directions are finally presented.