Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) present limitations in social communication and social interaction at home, in school, and in community contexts. Teaching and intervention programmes that use humanoid robots have been developing rapidly to improve the social functioning of children with ASD. This study evaluated the effectiveness of using a social robot to enhance the social skills of children with ASD. An ABA time-series analysis was used to examine the effects of the social robot on the social skills of children with ASD over 12 weeks. The study recruited 15 children with ASD from mainstream schools. A series of baseline measurements was taken at different time points in the pre-intervention phase, during which the children received social skill training from a human instructor only. In the intervention phase, the robot was integrated into the training programme to assist the instructor in conducting structured interactive social games, story-based activities, and singing or dancing activities. In the generalisation phase, the session switched back to the original training mode without the robot. The results of visual analysis and Tau-U analysis confirmed that the robotic educational programme was effective in improving the eye contact (in frequency and duration) and verbal initiation of the children with the human instructor. The improvement of the children was sustained even after the withdrawal of the robot in the generalisation phase. These implications on the practice and future development of using social robots for social skill training are discussed in this paper.

自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的儿童在家庭，学校和社区环境中的社交沟通和社交互动方面存在局限性。使用人形机器人的教学和干预计划正在迅速发展，以改善ASD儿童的社交功能。这项研究评估了使用社交机器人增强ASD儿童社交技能的有效性。ABA时间序列分析用于检查社交机器人对12周以上自闭症儿童社交技能的影响。该研究从主流学校招募了15名ASD儿童。在干预前阶段的不同时间点进行了一系列基线测量，在此期间，儿童仅接受了人类指导者的社交技能培训。在干预阶段 该机器人已集成到培训计划中，以帮助讲师进行结构化的互动社交游戏，基于故事的活动以及唱歌或跳舞活动。在推广阶段，会话切换回没有机器人的原始训练模式。视觉分析和Tau-U分析的结果证实，该机器人教育程序可以有效地改善与人类教练的儿童的眼神交流（频率和持续时间）和口头启动。即使在泛化阶段撤出了机器人，孩子们的进步也得以持续。本文讨论了这些对使用社交机器人进行社交技能培训的实践和未来发展的影响。