We met in Hatfield, UK, from 3 to 6 March, 2020. Training let us familiarize with Kaspar, both from the technical perspective and robot-child interaction. The meeting took place at The University of Hertfordshire, due to courtesy of Ben Robins, who works with Kaspar on a daily basis.

Previous case studies of Kaspar usage were presented that show promising results in enhancing emotional and social interaction skills in children with autism. Those case studies reported improvements in children’s behavior, suggesting the benefits of KASPAR mediated interventions. But the main goal of using social robots is to transfer those gained skills in real communication with people.

We have perfomed hands-on training. Invited staff got familiar with technical aspects of programming Kaspar, choosing and performing diverse scenarios of interaction and challenges when children with autism are involved.