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Challenging Sociality pp 29–48Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Autism, Social Attachment and Things

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Part of the book series: Social and Cultural Studies of Robots and AI ((SOCUSRA))

Abstract

This chapter explores how robots are imagined and put to use to help children with autism develop social behaviours and skills. I compare those models of autism that emphasize the autistic person as preferring things and machines over other people and which consider autism as part of the empathy-deficit model. I introduce alternative ways of thinking about autism that attempt to restore the importance of sociality and social relationships for autistic persons.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    NAO robot. Accessed 20.8.17. https://www.ald.softbankrobotics.com/en/robots/nao

  2. 2.

    Pepper robot. Accessed 20.8.17. https://www.ald.softbankrobotics.com/en/robots/pepper

  3. 3.

    ASIMO robot. Accessed 20.8.17. http://asimo.honda.com/

  4. 4.

    Keepon robot. Accessed 20.8.17. http://www.mykeepon.com/buy

  5. 5.

    Probo robot. Accessed 20.8.17. http://probo.vub.ac.be/Probo/

  6. 6.

    Karel Čapek, author of the play, Rossum’s Universal Robots (R.U.R) always capitalized the I.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Technology, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK

    Kathleen Richardson

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Richardson, K. (2018). Autism, Social Attachment and Things. In: Challenging Sociality. Social and Cultural Studies of Robots and AI. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74754-5_2

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