Effect of feedback from a socially interactive humanoid robot on reaching kinematics in children with and without cerebral palsy: A pilot study

ABSTRACT

Purpose: To examine whether children with or without cerebral palsy (CP) would follow a humanoid robot’s (i.e., Darwin) feedback to move their arm faster when playing virtual reality (VR) games. Methods: Seven children with mild CP and 10 able-bodied children participated. Real-time reaching was evaluated by playing the Super Pop VR^TM system, including 2-game baseline, 3-game acquisition, and another 2-game extinction. During acquisition, Darwin provided verbal feedback to direct the child to reach a kinematically defined target goal (i.e., 80% of average movement time in baseline). Outcome variables included the percentage of successful reaches (“% successful reaches”), movement time (MT), average speed, path, and number of movement units. Results: All games during acquisition and extinction had larger “%successful reaches,” faster speeds, and faster MTs than the 2 games during baseline (p < .05). Conclusion: Children with and without CP could follow the robot’s feedback for changing their reaching kinematics when playing VR games.

KEYWORDS:

• Cerebral palsy
• feedback
• humanoid robot
• reaching kinematics

Acknowledgments

The authors want to thank Mr. Adam Rollins, Dr. Alyssa Waltz, and Mrs. Noreen Zulaica for their help in data collection and subject recruitment. The authors also want to thank the children and their parents for volunteering to participate in this research.

Funding

This study was supported in part by a National Science Foundation grant (#1208287) to the first and last authors.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported in part by a National Science Foundation grant (#1208287) to the first and last authors.