Socially Assistive Robots for Children With Cerebral Palsy: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Cerebral Palsy (CP) is the most common pediatric neurodevelopmental condition in the world. Socially assistive robots (SARs) are supportive rehabilitation tools for children with developmental disabilities. The purpose of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the effectiveness of SARs at engaging children with CP during therapeutic interventions. A search through WoS, IEEE, PubMed, EMBASE, and ACM DL yielded 583 results, of which 9 met the inclusion criteria. Of the 9 studies, 5 unique SARs were evaluated across 24 participants. In general, the meta-analysis suggested that SARs can be effectively used to engage children in therapeutic interventions. However, there is a clear need for future work so that SAR designs can more accurately meet this population's needs.