Evolution and Identification from a Bibliometric Perspective of the Use of Robots in the Intervention of Children with ASD

Abstract

Irruption of technologies in the educational context, specifically robotics has meant changes in the use of learning tools for students with ASD. In this sense, the inclusion of robots in intervention with these students allowed to design simpler and more controlled learning environments, adjusted to the needs of these students. From this line of research, the main of this study has been to realize a systematic and thematic review providing a state-of-art review about the use of robots as a tool for social interaction with ASD students using some variables such as instrument, features of the participants, aim of the research, results, developed activities, worked areas. Therefore, a bibliometric study has been applied through the Web of Science (WOS). The advanced search with keywords on the subject, object of study, ended with 13 publications which were adjusted to previously established criteria such as age of the participants (between 2 and 16 years), purpose of articles (academic) or the years of publication (between the years 2005 and 2017). The results have showed, according to the established variables, an evolution of the scientific production, being year 2017 the most productive and observing that, in general lines, the prototypes of recent robots have more work options. The conclusions, in line with previous studies, show that robots have been used in the intervention with children with ASD being more used and effective as a tool to promote communicative interaction while there is no evidence of intervention in curricular contents, what may indicate its effectiveness in this area and transfer future studies to other areas.