Telerehabilitation Service with a Robot for Autism Intervention

Though studies on robot-mediated intervention for children with autism have gained momentum in recent years, not much work has been done to help therapists to have on-line access to robot programs. Telerehabilitation is an efficient solution to overcome barriers of access, remote locations, lack of autism therapists and cost in the delivery of rehabilitation services. In this study, a telerehabilitation system is developed to help therapists to concentrate fully on the intervention and not in robot programming. Robot scenarios are created based on consultation with clinicians and therapists and are available in the system via a website, with user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI). A survey with 15 therapists was carried out to get feedback on the system's usability. 80% of therapists agree that their overall first-time experience in using the telerehabilitation website was good.