The popular press is a term that refers to media such as newspapers, online articles, magazines, television, and other sources that provide information about current events to the general population. Popular press employs language that makes it more accessible to a larger audience, and often covers topics originating from the academic sector that would not be comprehended by the general public in its academic form. This paper will compare a newspaper article (Woolston, 2011) about a (then ongoing) study on robots aiding autistic children in learning to that original study (Scassellati, Admoni & Mataríc, 2012) to ascertain whether the newspaper article effectively communicated the findings of the study. Despite the absence of many details and…show more content… The humanoid robots used in these studies are designed with exaggerated, but simple, human features, such as larger eyes, lips, and noses, but may lack secondary features. This allowed autistics to see the robots as friendly enough to interact with, but not so human that they would be interpreted as intimidating. Most of the robots were capable of some level of motion, as it is key to interaction. Multiple studies used robots in therapy-like situations to increase attention and engagement. This was achieved by carefully timed movements, requests from the robot, or the robot showing behavior that the subject should mimic. The robots have also been shown to stimulate joint attention, which is the ability to show shared interest by pointing of making eye contact. An autistic child that had not previously displayed joint attention might make eye contact or point to the robot as an indication to another person in the room that the robot was of interest. Imitation is another learning tool robots have excelled at; autistic children have been shown to mimic their robot partners in both structured and spontaneous manners, allowing for the teaching of basic social interaction (Scassellati et al.,…show more content… Scassellati et al. (2012) employs specific improvements in skills and interactions when describing the effect the robots have on autistic children, while Woolston (2011) generalizes these effects. This generalization suggests the robots may have a higher ability to influence autistic children than the studies have shown. Woolston (2011) does not commit to as much detail as his counterparts when describing the appearance and reasons for said appearance, yet he does discuss the humanoid appearance of the robots and the reason for such appearances. Scassellati et al. (2012) goes into great detail when describing the robots, but the reader gathers the same idea. Woolston (2011) is as concerned with the ability of the robots themselves as their ability to help autistic children, whereas Scassellati et al. (2012) is more explicit as to the effect the robots have on the children. In reading Woolston (2011), a reader may come away with more hope for using robots autistic therapy in the near future, and although reading Scassellati et al. would slightly temper those hopes, it would allow readers to acquire reasonable expectations for near-future robot-autistic
