A pillow in the shape of a panda, with large eyes and four legs. It's called + me (PlusMe) and it's an innovative experimental device, designed to help children with autism
Don't store avocado like this: it's dangerousA pillow in the shape of a panda, with large eyes and four legs. It's called + me (PlusMe) and it's an innovative experimental device, designed to help children with autism.
The pillow was created within the project "+ me: motivating children with Autism Spectrum Disorders to interact socially through the use of Transitional Wearable Companions" developed at the Institute of Cognition Sciences and Technologies (ISTC-CNR), by the group Locen research, with the collaboration of therapists from the INI rehabilitation center and researchers from the Institute of Child Neuropsychiatry of the Sapienza University of Rome.
What's special about it? The pillow is worn around the neck. Its shape and texture have been specially designed to arouse a emotional attachment, through reassuring and comfortable physical contact. When the baby strokes PlusMe on the paws, the pillow emits colored lights and short sounds or music, depending on where it is touched. These are stimuli perceived as gratifying for children and capable of attracting their attention.
Through the control tablet you can select various combinations of colored lights and sounds. The responses of + me can also be mediated by an adult, by the therapist or by the parent, depending on the child's reactions, through an app, activating for example more gratifying sounds and colors and removing the less welcome ones.
“The therapist can create, through + me and his control app, numerous activities, adapting + me's responses to the type of child being treated. This is the key idea behind the project: the control of + me is shared between the child and the therapist: the first activates the responses of + me, through touches and caresses on the paws, the second the media through the control tablet. If the child wants to achieve a particularly pleasing light and sound pattern, she must interact with the therapist. This behavioral model can potentially favor, support, reinforce the development of basic social skills, such as eye-face contact ("eye-contact"), requests for interpersonal exchange ("social referencing"), shared attention (" joint-attention ")" explains the team.
The pillow was first tested in February 2017 on a sample of typically developing babies between the ages of 10 and 34 months to observe their behavior. The results obtained will be compared with those of another research that will take place during this month and which will involve a sample of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.
+me device: functional features from valerio.sperati@istc.cnr.com on Vimeo.
Meanwhile, yesterday, April 4, one left crowdfunding campaign on the Indiegogo platform to finance the project.
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- Nao, the robot designed by Aeneas for children with autism
Francesca Mancuso
