Humanoid Robots Being Trialled with Autistic Student

Topcliffe students Daniel and Kaleem play with one of the state of the art robots: Evidence is emerging that suggests autistic children learn better from robots than human teachers

"Autistic children could in the future be helped to learn by robot buddies in the classroom. Evidence emerging from a trial at a school in Birmingham suggests that pupils who are on the autistic spectrum learn better from the automatons than human teachers. And researchers say that if they can be proven to help difficult to reach youngsters, then in the future they could also be used to help pupils in mainstream classes. Max and Ben, two knee-high humanoid robots that can dance to Thriller  plays games and emulate Tai Chi, have been helping pupils at Topcliffe Primary School in Castle Vale since March. Ian Lowe, headteacher at Topcliffe, where about a quarter of the pupils are autistic, said the robots had been 'brilliant' at supporting children with their learning. He told the BBC: 'The robots have no emotion, so autistic children find them less threatening than their teachers and easier to engage with.'"

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