# Why robots? A survey on the roles and benefits of social robots in the therapy of children with autism

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1311.0352 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1311.0352/

## Key facts

- Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 2 Nov 2013.

## Built on by (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [A Survey on Human-aware Robot Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.11650/) (2021)
- [How Can Large Language Models Enable Better Socially Assistive Human-Robot Interaction: A Brief Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.00938/) (2024)
- [Embodied AI with Foundation Models for Mobile Service Robots: A Systematic Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.20503/) (2025)
- [Human-mediated Large Language Models for Robotic Intervention in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.00260/) (2024)
- [A Robot-Assisted Approach to Small Talk Training for Adults with ASD](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.23508/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

This paper reviews the use of socially interactive robots to assist in the therapy of children with autism. The extent to which the robots were successful in helping the children in their social, emotional, and communication deficits was investigated. Child-robot interactions were scrutinized with respect to the different target behaviors that are to be elicited from a child during therapy. These behaviors were thoroughly examined with respect to a childs development needs. Most importantly, experimental data from the surveyed works were extracted and analyzed in terms of the target behaviors and how each robot was used during a therapy session to achieve these behaviors. The study concludes by categorizing the different therapeutic roles that these robots were observed to play, and highlights the important design features that enable them to achieve high levels of effectiveness in autism therapy.