Parents' acceptance: humanoid-robot intervention for autistic children / Ummi Ruqaiyah Mohd Azhar

Past studies have shown the related research on the acceptance of direct interaction among autistic children and teachers with humanoid-robot on how they accept or not if humanoid-robot is used in the therapeutic sessions. Humanoid-robot is used as a mediator without neglecting the involvement of therapists because autistic children are found to be more attracted to respond to the technology rather than to human. The issue arises when there is lack of information on the parental acceptance and which factors influence their approval in accepting humanoid-robot use in their child's therapy. This study represents an identification of criteria that affect parents' acceptance if humanoid-robot intervention is used in therapeutic sessions. The finding is then need to produce a conceptual model of parents' acceptance towards humanoid-robot intervention in therapeutic sessions. This research was held in Seksyen 7, Shah Alam by approaching parents who have autistic children within ages2 to 9 years old. The research has used Snowball sampling and quantitative method was applied by distributing the questionnaires to 43 parents. It contains 13 questions excluding the demographic profile of the respondents. A theoretical framework of parental acceptance proposed from past research was also adapted and modified in this study. The results of multiple linear regressions stated that learning opportunities and subjective norm were the criteria that affects the parental acceptance with significant value of .033 and .049 respectively. It brings significance to the robot system developer in making enhancement to the current robot system for autistic children.