Neurotypical and autistic children aged 6 to 7 years in a speaker-listener situation with a human or a minimalist InterActor robot

Language offers the possibility to transfer information between speaker and listener who both possess the ability to use it. Using a “speaker-listener” situation, we have compared the verbal and the emotional expressions of neurotypical and autistic children aged 6 to 7 years. The speaker was always a child (neurotypical or autistic); the listener was a human InterActor or an InterActor robot, i.e., a small toy robot which reacts to speech expression by nodding only. The results suggest that a robot characterized by predictable reactions is better able to facilitate autistic children in expression than a human. When comparing to the performance of neurotypical children, the data would indicate that minimalistic artificial environments have the potential to open the way for neuronal organization and reorganization with the ability to support the embrainment of verbal and emotional information processing among autistic children.