Robot-Assisted Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Robot-assisted therapy is a promising area of translational neuroscience for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The robot-assisted cognitive behavioral therapy (RA-CBT) is a robot-assisted therapy focused on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which shows promising evidence of efficacy and represents a viable intervention for children with ASD. This type of treatment consists of a human-assisted social robot acting as an intervention mediator to increase the emotional competence and to improve the socio-emotional understanding skills in children with ASD. RA-CBT can be used as a complementary therapy for ASD children with the potential to reduce the workload of the therapist and to improve the social skills.