Robots could be the future of child mental health counselors

A new study suggests that robots could be the future of child counselors.

Researchers from Cambridge University believe that children are more willing to share personal information with robots than with humans.

The findings suggest robots could be an effective addition to mental health assessments — but should not be used in place of mental health support.

“We don’t have any intention of replacing psychologists or other mental health professionals with robots, since their expertise far surpasses anything a robot can do,” study co-author Micol Spitale said.

For the study, each child participated in a one-on-one 45-minute session with a Nao robot — a child-sized humanoid robot.

Children aged 8 to 13 took part in a questionnaire completed by the robot to assess their mental health while parents, guardians and researchers observed from another room.

During the sessions, the robot completed four tasks: asking open-ended questions about happy and sad memories from the last week, conducting the Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire, asking children to answer questions related to a picture shown to them and administering the Revised Children’s Anxiety and Depression Scale.

The participants interacted with the small robot by talking to it or touching it. The robot contained sensors on its hands and feet, as well as sensors that tracked the child’s heart rate and head and eye movements.

Researchers found that the children were easily opening up to the robot — and revealed information they hadn’t shared in the questionnaires.

“Researchers have found that children are more likely to divulge private information – like that they’re being bullied, for example – to a robot than they would be to an adult,” the study’s first author Nida Itrat Abbasi said.

All participants later shared that they enjoyed talking with the robot, but the study found that children interacted differently with the robot based on their level of mental health concerns.

Interacting with the robot led to more positive response ratings for the children not experiencing problems, while those experiencing mental health concerns were more likely to express how they really felt, resulting in more negative response ratings.

“Since the robot we use is child-sized, and completely nonthreatening, children might see the robot as a confidante — they feel like they won’t get into trouble if they share secrets with it,” Abbasi said.

Professor Hatice Gunes, who leads the Affective Intelligence and Robotics Laboratory in Cambridge’s department of computer science and technology, began to study the link between socially assistive robots and mental health when she became a mother.

“After I became a mother, I was much more interested in how children express themselves as they grow, and how that might overlap with my work in robotics,” she said.

She explained how robots are more compelling for children than a screen because they’re physical objects.

“Children are quite tactile, and they’re drawn to technology. If they’re using a screen-based tool, they’re withdrawn from the physical world,” Gunes said. “But robots are perfect because they’re in the physical world — they’re more interactive, so the children are more engaged.”