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Figure 2.
Two children with autism simultaneously interacting with the Labo-1 robot
used in the AURORA project.
them frightening and unpredictable (Baron-Cohen 1995), (Trevarthen et al.
1996/98). A variety of therapy approaches are available, and the author is in-
volved in the AURORA project (Autonomous robotic platform as a remedial
tool for children with autism, http://www.aurora-project.com/) that develops
a mobile robot as an interactive and therapeutic
toy,
(Dautenhahn 1999a, b),
(Werry & Dautenhahn 1999), (Dautenhahn & Werry 2000). Figure 2 shows two
children with autism simultaneously playing with the robot, part of a series of
trials where we investigated the role of the robot as a social mediator (Werry et
al. 2001).
Previously, (Dautenhahn 1997) I suggested that an impairment of the pro-
cesses of empathic understanding and biographical reconstruction might con-
tribute to the symptoms which people with autism show, who are generally not
able to build up 'normal' social relationships, nor can they show 'adequate' be-
havior in social interactions (Howlin et al. 1999). People with autism definitely
possess strong emotions, but they seem to lack the ability to view other persons
as
mental agents
, as opposed to
physical objects
, which is a crucial prerequisite
for empathy and attribution of emotions and mental states to other people.
Moreover, children with autism generally do not show pretend-play with dolls
or stuffed animals.
A set of standardized experiments are usually used to identify autistic
symptoms in children, among them experiments in which a particular story
is presented and the child has to answer questions about the actors' current be-
liefs (false belief test). The
Sally-Anne test
(Baron-Cohen et al. 1985) is about
two dolls. (1) Sally and Anne are together in a room, (2) Sally puts a marble in
a basket and leaves the room, (3) Anne takes the marble out of the basket and
puts it into a box, (4) Sally returns. The child is then asked where Sally will look
