Autistic kids have a companion now
Technology can turn everything around you into gold. Won’t you agree to it? Technology is the mother of new inventions. Nowadays the researchers are keen on developing techniques or devices which can help find a remedy or cure for one’s problems.
Recently, a group of researchers from the University of Hertfordshire has come with a new development that is a robot called “Kasper.” This social robot has been mainly built to help autism children socialize more. The robot can sing songs, comb his hair, imitate eating, and play the tambourine. In short, the robot is only trying to help the children with autism to gel up with their peers more. As the autism struck kids are more anxious, they tend to go over the board sometimes and hurt one. During this situation, the robot says “Ouch, that hurts me.” and the kids are told to rectify their behavior by tickling the robot’s feet. The robot can be fed when hungry and talked to when needed to help the kids socialize more.
Kasper is currently with the children in an autism school in North London. According to the National Autistic Society, there are about 700,000 people having autism in the U.K. and the university wants Kasper to help most of these people. Professor Kerstin Dautenhahn from the University of Hertfordshire wants to make this vision of theirs available to all the autism patients in the future. Kasper, the social robot will be made commercial nationwide only when its current trials show successful results.
Kasper’s sports blue cap, checkered shirt, and way of talking attract the autistic kids towards it. The friendly nature of Kasper can help the kids struggling with autism overcome their anxiety issues. As per the Kasper makers, they avoided making it too humanlike as the autistic kids avoid basic human emotion and communication and instead made a simplified version. This artificial intelligence-based robot is going to have endless success in the coming years.
“Can Kasper make a big difference in the society?” only the future can tell. So guys, let’s wait and watch when Kasper will hit the market.