Maja Mataric and doctoral student David Feil-Seifer of the University of Southern California are developing a robot to tailor robot interactions to the specific needs of children with autism spectrum disorders to help therapists treating their condition.

The initial study, reported at the Conference on Interaction Design for Children with Special Needs in Chicago, tested whether interaction as opposed to simple passive observation was going on between children with autism spectrum disorders and a colorful bubble-blowing wheeled robot.

The robot had two settings. In one, it carried on its rolling and bubble blowing on its own internal schedule, regardless of the behavior of the child. In the other, "when the child pushes a button, then the bubbles blow."

"Total speech went from 39.4 to 48.4 utterances, robot speech from 6.2 to 6.6 utterances, and parent speech from 17.8 to 33 utterances," the researchers said in a statement. "

Generally, when the robot was acting contingently, the child was more sociable, the researchers said.