Project title: Social Robots as Tools in Special Education
Budget: €970,078.15 (Public Expense: €875,385.13)
Funded from:Action “RESEARCH – DEVELOP – INNOVATE”, cycle A, Intervention II, Operational Programme “Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation”, NSRF (National Strategic Reference Framework) 2014-2020 Project no. Τ1ΕΔΚ-00929
Coordinator & Principal Investigator: Professor Vassilis Kaburlasos
Start – end dates: 28 June 2018 – 27 June 2022
The main objective of the project is to utilize social robots in Greek special education through the development of specially designed educational intervention programs both for the treatment of selected cases of autism and for the treatment of learning disabilities such as dyslexia, etc.
In addition, currently, social robots, as well as various assistive technologies in special education, typically operate with remote control by a specialist scientist. Within the framework of the project, methodologies based on computational intelligence will also be developed which will allow a greater degree of autonomy of the robots, so that the role of the therapeutic staff can be upgraded and become more creative in the supervision and direction of the educational process.
To achieve the objectives of the project, cooperation between Greek scientists in the field of Special Educational Needs and engineers is required. For this reason, the partnership consists of the HUMAIN Laboratory of Democritus University of Thrace, Papageorgiou General Hospital/4th Pediatric Clinic of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki & 1st Psychiatric Clinic of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the PRAXIS Novel Therapeutic and Counseling Unit (Kavala), the Child and Parent Center (Thessaloniki) and the company EUROACTION SA (Thessaloniki).
