Development of face recognition algorithm for enhancement of social communication of robotic assistive autism therapy

In this paper, we propose a face recognition method for tracking, detecting and recognizing the faces of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) for robotic assistive therapy application. ASD is a brain developmental disorder that manifests itself through a person´s behavior and social-communication skill [1]. Face recognition stage is an essential element in robotic assistive therapy since it is the first interaction step that occurs between autistic children and robot. The algorithm aims to encourage autistic children to interact and to capture their attention using a robot that recognizes their faces. This is to establish a beneficial training environment for autistic children before engaging further in the training module.