30/08/2010 - Classes for Students, Projects

Educational robotics and autism: our experience at the center Philos

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In July 2010, some collaborators to the School of Robotics have hold Educational robotics' laboratories for autistic children at the center "LPhilos" in Genoa, Italy. The success of these sessions brought through a more structured project on autism and educational robotics. It is going to start in September, 2010.

It was in discussing with the children's teachers that we had understood the methodological importance of assigning the task to the autistic children: a) to clarify the assignment to them, and b) as a way to involve all the autistic children.

In the first three lessons we wanted to establish some good relationship with the children; furthermore, it were important moments were we could understand their needs.

We knew the difficulties involved in setting a definite methodology for autism. That is why we have limited our goal to organize a few rules for our educational robotics laboratories with autistic children trying to involve as many children as possible, each endowed with her/his creativity  and abilities.

In out educational robotics laboratories, at the end of the robot's assembling session, the students participants start to program their robot. The contemporary phase is that of the narration: children are asked to imagine a tale where their robot is one of the characters. The importance of the tale as a powerful educational tool is underlined by many scholars (Piaget, Bruner). The laboratories organized by the School of Robotics' collaborators employ this narration tool in several instances.

Also for the autistic children, the creation of the robot stories was an incredible moment, so powerful that one of them who, until then, was not reactive, started to be interested in the whole process.

Here you can watch the video "The Giant", done by the children in the course of our second session, during which they designed and assembled a robotic Giant robotics figurine employing Lego Wedo.

Following this important experiences, the educational center "La finestra sul mondo" decided to start a more structured project, beginning on September 2010.

Official website of Philos, academy of counseling
Official website of La Finestra sul mondo