Topcliffe School in Castle Vale, Birmingham, West Midlands has become the first school in the UK to use a robot to teach autistic children.
Having no emotions and standardized expressions and responses makes the robots much easier for autistic children to relate and to to understand.
The name of the robot is Max, which shows his Tai Chi skills.
The University of Birmingham and Aldebaran donated the robots in order learn how their technology could help children with disabilities.
Teachers can communicate through the robot for an entire class by writing sentences into a computer.
The knee-high machines, which are designed to move in the same way as children, can be programmed to have conversations, play games, dance and even take classes.
A feature recently developed allows teachers and parents to track a child’s progression by recording all of their results in games played with the robot.
‘We’ve seen some lovely signs of progression in children who say the robot is their “best friend” after initially being scared of it,’ said Ben Waterworth, Head of ICT at the school.
ICT Leader Ben Waterworth, 28, stands with ‘Max’ the robot at the mainstream state school.
