Milo, a robot designed to help children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is making his way across Dallas schools.
“Meet Milo, the robot,” Don Champion from CBS News reports from KIPP Truth Academy in Dallas.”He’s got moves – and skills.”
Skills he does indeed have. Milo was created to ensure that students with ASD acquire the social skills and appropriate emotional responses that will help them succeed in their academic and social environments.
“[They] learn these social skills and are then able to actually start interacting with other people,” Richard Margolin, the co-founder of RoboKind, explained.
Milo helps students with ASD through engaging them in non-overwhelming ways.
“Milo’s consistent speech patterns and behavior repetitions are key for children with autism,” Margolin told CBS’ Don Champion. “When you bring technology into it, it’s something they can engage with – it’s something that’s less overwhelming to them.”
Keenan, a first grader at KIPP Truth Academy is learning techniques that help him calm down through working with Milo.
“He’s using his words,” His principal, Katie Hill said. “He’s able to isolate what it is that he’s feeling or thinking.”
Milo the Robot is working with students in 285 schools nationwide and Robokind looks forward to expanding to 2,000 schools by the end of 2017.