This study aimed (1) to examine the contribution of robot ZORA in achieving therapeutic and educational goals in rehabilitation and special education for children with severe physical disabilities, and (2) to discover the roles professionals attribute to robot ZORA when it is used in robot-based play interventions in rehabilitation and special education for children with severe physical disabilities. A multi-centre mixed methods study was conducted among children with severe physical disabilities in two centres for rehabilitation and one school for special education. The participating children played with robot ZORA six times during a period of 6 weeks, in individual or group sessions. Quantitative data were gathered about the contribution of ZORA in reaching individual goals for all of the participating children, using the Individually Prioritized Problem Assessment (IPPA). Playfulness was measured with a visual analogue scale (0–10) and children could indicate whether they liked the sessions using a scale consisting of smileys. Video-stimulated recall interviews were used to collect qualitative data about the different roles of ZORA. In total, 33 children and 12 professionals participated in the study. The results of the IPPA showed a significant contribution of ZORA to the achievement of (children’s) individual goals. The data gathered using the IPPA during the ZORA-based interventions showed that the largest contributions of robot ZORA lie in the domains of movement skills and communication skills. Playfulness of the sessions was 7.5 on average and 93% of the sessions were evaluated as ‘enjoyable’ by the children. Overall, ZORA could positively contribute to the achievement of individual goals for children with severe physical disabilities. According to the participating professionals the most promising roles in which robot ZORA can be used are motivator, rewarder or instructor.
Maintaining the child-robot relationship after a significant break, such as a holiday, is an important step for developing sustainable social robots for education. We ran a four-session user study (n = 113 children) that included a nine-month break between the third and fourth session. During the study, participants practiced math with the help of a social robot math tutor. We found that social personalization is an effective strategy to better sustain the child-robot relationship than the absence of social personalization. To become reacquainted after the long break, the robot summarizes a few pieces of information it had stored about the child. This gives children a feeling of being remembered, which is a key contributor to the effectiveness of social personalization. Enabling the robot to refer to information previously shared by the child is another key contributor to social personalization. Conditional for its effectiveness, however, is that children notice these memory references. Finally, although we found that children's interest in the tutoring content is related to relationship formation, personalizing the topics did not lead to more interest in the content. It seems likely that not all of the memory information that was used to personalize the content was up-to-date or socially relevant.
MULTIFILE
Through a qualitative examination, the moral evaluations of Dutch care professionals regarding healthcare robots for eldercare in terms of biomedical ethical principles and non-utility are researched. Results showed that care professionals primarily focused on maleficence (potential harm done by the robot), deriving from diminishing human contact. Worries about potential maleficence were more pronounced from intermediate compared to higher educated professionals. However, both groups deemed companion robots more beneficiary than devices that monitor and assist, which were deemed potentially harmful physically and psychologically. The perceived utility was not related to the professionals' moral stances, countering prevailing views. Increasing patient's autonomy by applying robot care was not part of the discussion and justice as a moral evaluation was rarely mentioned. Awareness of the care professionals' point of view is important for policymakers, educational institutes, and for developers of healthcare robots to tailor designs to the wants of older adults along with the needs of the much-undervalued eldercare professionals.
