Saudi student develops robot to teach children with Down syndrome
“Offers special benefits for children who have learning difficulties,” says Al Qahtani
Abu Dhabi: Nada Bint Saeed Al Qahtani, a Saudi student at the College of Computer Science, King Khalid University, has developed a “robot” named “Eve” to support teaching programmes for children aged 3 to 15 with Down syndrome.
Al Qahtani said the project aims to use robots to help children with the condition build and develop their emotional intelligence skills, their cognitive skills and behavioral skills through interactive activities and puzzle solving.
She added the robot was built in view of the diversity of students’ levels in classes and their different abilities, which created a need for new teaching methods.
“Here comes the importance of learning with the help of a robot that offers special benefits for children who have learning difficulties in general and children with Down syndrome in particular,” she said.
Al Qahtani added students are taught by providing visual presentation, self-learning, graphics, stimulating sounds, immediate responses and the ability to manage their own learning and interact socially with students in a manner similar to the interaction of teachers with their students.
“The robot depends on an intelligent system using artificial intelligence techniques to help it recognise students and distinguish sounds so that it can interact and give correct reactions,” she said.
The robot system consists of five basic units: teaching mathematical operations, numbers, reading, listening and solving puzzles, which are displayed depending on the knowledge level of each student.
A smartphone app connected to the Android system has also been created to add the child’s information by the parents to facilitate the identification process of the child by the robot, in addition to enabling the parents to follow the child’s progress by sending feedback about the tasks that have been accomplished.