10.1007/978-3-030-29384-0_27
https://zenodo.org/records/3523872
oai:zenodo.org:3523872
Ioannou Andri
Ioannou Andri
0000-0002-3570-6578
Cyprus Interaction Lab, Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus and Research centre for Interactive media, Smart systems and Emerging technologies Nicosia, Cyprus
Andreva Anna
Andreva Anna
Department of Logopedics, Faculty of Public Health, Health Care and Sport, South-West University "Neofit Rilski", Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria
Play and learn with an intelligent robot: Enhancing the therapy of hearing-impaired children
Zenodo
2019
NAO
Speech Therapy
Auditory-Verbal Therapy
Special Education
Playful Learning
Technology-Enhanced Learning
Deaf
Hearing Impairment
Humanoid Robot
Intelligent Robot
2019-08-25
eng
https://zenodo.org/communities/rise-teaming-cyprus
https://zenodo.org/communities/eu
Accepted pre-print
Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 International
This study suggests an innovative way of using an intelligent robot to support speech therapy for hearing impaired children through play. Although medical technology (e.g., hearing aid, cochlear implant) for children with hear-ing impairment has advanced significantly, the amplification itself does not provide optimal development of hearing and speaking; it must be combined with specialized therapy. The present study focuses on the use of the humanoid robot NAO in auditory-verbal therapy, an approach to the development of audi-tory and verbal skills, which does not allow lipreading or other non-verbal cues to facilitate communication. NAO does not have a human mouth and therefore children with hearing impairment cannot do lipreading; this unique characteris-tic of the technology has been successfully used in the study to create playful and engaging auditory-verbal therapy sessions for six kindergarten hearing im-paired children, allowing them to improve their ability to follow instructions us-ing the hearing aid/ cochlear implant rather than visual clues in the environ-ment. Our results, although preliminary, seem to encourage further research in supporting hearing-impaired children via play with intelligent robots.
This work has been partly supported by the project that has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 739578 (RISE – Call: H2020-WIDESPREAD-01-2016-2017-TeamingPhase2) and the Government of the Republic of Cyprus through the Directorate General for European Programmes, Coordination and Development.
European Commission
10.13039/501100000780
739578
Research Center on Interactive Media, Smart System and Emerging Technologies