PABI Offers Cost-Effective Therapy Solution From: Servo - 02/2017 - page 17 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says about one in 68 American children has autism spectrum disorder.Therapy isn’t cheap at roughly $60,000 a year for the recommended amount of 40 hours per week of applied behavioral analysis (ABA) needed to effectively treat autism. The high cost is one of the reasons many autistic children don’t receive proper care. Fortunately, there's growing evidence that robots can help.There’s a new robot called PABI (Penguin for Autism Behavioral Intervention) that is looking to make autism therapy more affordable. Developed by the husband-wife team of Gregory Fischer, director of WPI's Automation and lnterventional Medicine (AIM) Lab, and Laurie Dickstein-Fischer, Salem State University School of Education professor, PABI recently completed a two week pilot study with five autistic children, and the results were very promising. PABI, the robot penguin is 20 inches tall and 12 inches wide, with 12 degrees of freedom that autonomously conducts ABA therapy while logging therapy data that will be reviewed by a human therapist. PABI can move its beak, two wings, two eyes (independently), and eyelids. It also uses openCV 2.49 and 720p webcams to track a child's facial expressions that can then be reviewed by the therapist.There's a computer in PABI’s stomach that pairs wirelessly with a tablet to run interactive lessons for the children, as well. Links: Humanoid Robot for Autism Interventions in Children - PABI http://aimlab.wpi.edu/research/projects/Autism_Therapy_Robot Penguin Robot Provides Help For Children with Autism (with video 1:58) http://boston.cbslocal.com/2016/11/29/penguin-robot-help-autistic-children