Problem Solving, Creativity and Solution Setting

At present, social robots are widely used in the field of children. Social robots have four main applications, which are companionship, teaching and coaching, therapeutic tools or assistants and telepresence (Dawe et al., 2018, p. 1). In recent years, most research on robots has been well received. Although there are still some problems holding back development, there are still some opportunities for robots to become more perfect. This section will describe the problems, disruption and opportunities for the development of social robots.

2 Problem

There are many types of social robots for children that are developed by different organizations and come from different places. Some robots perform well, and some have room for improvement. Some data indicate that the practice of social robots in the field of children's health presents positive impacts integrally, while some subjective problems are found in the interviews with users and researchers (Dawe et al., 2018, p. 7). Firstly, a series of technical problems became the most frequently mentioned questions. A research was found that an auxiliary learning robot designed for primary school students might cause accidents (Cheetham et al. 2000, p. 381). In the remote operation, students could not estimate whether there were people passing by the robot, the robot might hurt people in action. Larriba et al. (2016, p. 192) also introduce a companion pet robot named Pelo that can relieve the pain of children in hospital. The study found that Pelo occasionally cannot be opened, which is a technical issue worth paying attention to. Meanwhile, this robot cannot respond to children's different emotions (crying or laughing) in a timely manner. This may result in poor treatment because the doctor cannot know the patient's mood changes through Pelo. In this case, the robot does not seem to care about the child, and thus cannot meet the child's needs. This is the second problem of social robots. Not only Pelo, but other robots also have similar problems. The use of social robots to treat children with Intellectual Disabilities is a possible choice because the treatment methods of robots are not significantly different from ordinary medical methods, which increases the value of social robots. However, it is worth noting that the needs of children with intellectual disabilities are special, and they need greater appeal to focus on social robots. Bernd et al. (2010, p. 262) point out that the treated children did not satisfy the content of a robot game. The child's attention cannot always be attracted by the robot. Thus, the therapeutic effect cannot reach the desired state.

Although social robots have positive development potential in the field of child therapy, there are some problems that prevent it from expanding its influence. In other words, some problems may block the development of social robots. First, due to some of its functional design, some social robots cannot become social agents. Although social robots are objects created to communicate with people, they are different from human beings. they have no social cognition and complete social ability (lee et al., 2006, p. 539). This design makes social robots have great limitations. Therefore, social robots can only be used as a tool for adjuvant therapy and companionship, and cannot completely replace humans (Dawe et al., 2018, p. 14). Secondly, there are many unknowns about social robots that may hinder their development. It is hard to predict whether social robots will flourish because there is not enough research. At present, most of the children who are interviewed like social robots due to the novelty of social robots. However, children may be distracted by using a single function for a long time, so that they will no longer be attracted to this technology. Users may lose interest is the currently hidden danger of social robots. Now researchers need to increase the sample size to verify the stability of the robot audience. If there are fewer and fewer users relying on social robots in the future, its development may be interrupted.

In humanoid social robots, people's inherent psychological expectation is that the former's perceptual characteristics are infinitely close to human beings, and its rational ability can help or even surpass human beings. In today's robot design and research fields, such robots are defined as "humanoid social robots" (Wu, 2016).

Through the preliminary study, it is fully proved that the use of humanoid social robots in 6 children (4-9 years old) with cerebral palsy is particular useful. In the survey of parents after rehabilitation training, their parents all think that humanoid social robots are encouraging children and hope to continue to use it in the future treatment (Kozyavkin et al., 2014, p. 431). Furthermore, because robots are more and more advanced, they can interact with children in the educational environment. This interaction can be used not only for the development of social skills but also for coaching (Kim et al., 2009, p. 318). Even if an interface can understand emotions, it can only work if it connects people with problem-solving methods.

Moreover, because of the rapid development of humanoid social robots, they have all kinds of human characteristics, such as personality, body, emotion and verbal and non-verbal communication ability (Kim et al., 2009, p. 318). Social robots can be used as a platform to meet children's unique care needs. For example, when children are depressed or have some symptoms, robots can show a healthy attitude to provide comfort and companionship for children. This is helpful for the treatment of children's chronic diseases (Kozyavkin et al., 2014, p. 431). Therefore, this shows the great promise and potential of humanoid social robots to help children in health care. With the development of science and technology, it is only a matter of time before humanoid robots will become more advanced and mature in the future (Zhao, 2006, p. 415).

Customer journey map of social robots

The Application of Social robots in Children's’ field