Social Robots Help Children with Diabetes Gain Confidence
From: Product Design & Development - 11/14/2014

ALIZ-E - an 8.3 Euro million initiative funded by the European Commission and
led by Plymouth University - has shown young people are more inclined to
perform tasks related to their condition if prompted to do so by a friendly
interactive robot (Robot Buddy Charlie).

Now researchers believe the robots could assist children with other medical
conditions, such as autism, or act as classroom assistants aiding pupils who
may be in danger of falling behind their peers.

ALIZ-E uses ‘Nao’ robots - each standing around 60 centimetres tall - and
equips them with specially designed speech recognition software through which
they can interact with a child and deliver personalised responses.

With the ALIZ-E project now reaching its conclusion, the Plymouth University
team are also now exploring other uses for the robots, and believe the same
software developed during the project could help children on the autistic
spectrum.

Read the entire article and view a video (4:50 Dutch with English subtitles)
  at: 
http://www.pddnet.com/news/2014/11/social-robots-help-children-diabetes-gain-confidence
http://www.mdtmag.com/news/2014/11/social-robots-help-children-diabetes-gain-confidence

Links:
Social robots enable young people with diabetes to be more confident about their
  futures
http://www.ecnmag.com/news/2014/11/social-robots-enable-young-people-diabetes-be-more-confident-about-their-futures

ALIZ-E project
http://www.aliz-e.org/

Nao robot
http://www.aldebaran.com/en