Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Apr 24:11:1328467.
doi: 10.3389/frobt.2024.1328467. eCollection 2024.

Managing social-educational robotics for students with autism spectrum disorder through business model canvas and customer discovery

Anshu Saxena Arora  1 , Amit Arora  1 , K Sivakumar  2 , John R McIntyre  3
Affiliations

Managing social-educational robotics for students with autism spectrum disorder through business model canvas and customer discovery

Anshu Saxena Arora et al. Front Robot AI. .

Abstract

Social-educational robotics, such as NAO humanoid robots with social, anthropomorphic, humanlike features, are tools for learning, education, and addressing developmental disorders (e.g., autism spectrum disorder or ASD) through social and collaborative robotic interactions and interventions. There are significant gaps at the intersection of social robotics and autism research dealing with how robotic technology helps ASD individuals with their social, emotional, and communication needs, and supports teachers who engage with ASD students. This research aims to (a) obtain new scientific knowledge on social-educational robotics by exploring the usage of social robots (especially humanoids) and robotic interventions with ASD students at high schools through an ASD student-teacher co-working with social robot-social robotic interactions triad framework; (b) utilize Business Model Canvas (BMC) methodology for robot design and curriculum development targeted at ASD students; and (c) connect interdisciplinary areas of consumer behavior research, social robotics, and human-robot interaction using customer discovery interviews for bridging the gap between academic research on social robotics on the one hand, and industry development and customers on the other. The customer discovery process in this research results in eight core research propositions delineating the contexts that enable a higher quality learning environment corresponding with ASD students' learning requirements through the use of social robots and preparing them for future learning and workforce environments.

Keywords: autism spectrum disorder (ASD); business model canvas (BMC); customer discovery; robotic interventions; social-educational robots.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Relationships within the Triad [ASD Student–Teacher (co-working with social robot)–Social Robot] Framework (Adapted from van Doorn et al., 2023).
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Sphero Robots (autonomous technology) in classrooms.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Current research: Intersection of social robotics and HRI, BMC, and learning and education.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Alimisis D. (2013). Educational robotics: open questions and new challenges. Themes Sci. Technol. Educ. 6 (1), 63–71.
    1. Alves-Oliveira P., Orr A., Björling E. A., Cakmak M. (2022). Connecting the dots of social robot design from interviews with robot creators. Front. Robotics AI 9, 720799. 10.3389/frobt.2022.720799 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Apraiz A., Alberola J. A. M., Lasa G., Mazmela M., Nguyen H. N. (2023). Development of a new set of heuristics for the evaluation of human-robot interaction in industrial settings: heuristics robots experience (HEUROBOX). Front. Robotics AI 10, 1227082. 10.3389/frobt.2023.1227082 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Arora A. S., Arora A. (2020). The race between cognitive and artificial intelligence: examining socio-ethical collaborative robots through anthropomorphism and xenocentrism in human-robot interaction. Int. J. Intelligent Inf. Technol. (IJIIT) 16 (1), 1–16. 10.4018/ijiit.2020010101 - DOI
    1. Arora A. S., Arora A., Jentjens S., McIntyre J. R., Sepehri M. (2022). Managing social robotics and socio-cultural business norms: parallel worlds of emerging AI and human virtues. International marketing and management research (IMMR) series (Palgrave Macmillan – Springer Nature; ), 9. Available at: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-04867-8 . - DOI

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This study received funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Initiation Award (RIA) #2100934 - Social Motivation Approach for Rehabilitation Through Educational Robotics (SMARTER) research, and the Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, United States.