Workshop on Social Robotics for
           Neurodevelopmental Disorders

                 Paris, France
                 May 31st, 2020

              In conjunction with
The IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
                   ICRA 2020
 
Email: icra2020ndd@easychair.org
Website: https://icra2020ndd.wordpress.com/

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IMPORTANT DATES
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– Workshop submission deadline: February 29th, 2020
– Workshop acceptance notification: March 31th, 2020
– Workshop camera ready: April 15th, 2020
– Workshop day: May 31st, 2020

ICRA 2020 registration deadlines:
– Early bird: Until February 28, 2020
– Standard: Until April 20, 2020
– On site: From April 21, 2020
More on: https://www.icra2020.org/registration

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AIM AND SCOPE
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Neurodevelopmental deficits (NDD) are defined by the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) as impairments on the development of the brain or of the central nervous system, with a typical onset in early childhood. These disorders are characterized by specific limitations on language, attention or motor control abilities and on a global impairment of social skills (e.g., autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, specific learning disorder).
Recent years were characterized by a growing interest on the use of new technologies for children with NDD. Social robots, in particular, emerged as tools endowed with a physical embodiment, capable of simplifying the complexity of the social interactions. Experimental evidence suggests how such robots could be used by clinicians as instruments capable of achieving finer diagnoses and as tools for cognitive remediation. Although most research in this field may be regarded as preliminary, the use of social robots in NDD has the potential of achieving a continuous long-term observation of the children, allowing a finer tailoring of the therapies, treating each “unique” child for his/her “unique” problem.
The emergence of socially assistive robots tailored to the needs of NDDs lays on an interdisciplinary effort involving engineers, psychiatrists, psychologists, cognitive scientists, instructors and families. By presenting scientific advances on the use of social robotics in NDDs, the goal of this workshop is to foster new ideas, discussions and interdisciplinary collaborations between all the stakeholders involved in NDDs caring, as well as between research and the healthcare industry.

The main aim of this workshop will be to provide a venue for young researchers to share their recent advances as well as to listen and interact with senior researchers with different backgrounds working in NDDs. This workshop will focus on metrics, models, techniques, algorithms that enable social robots to be effective tools in the NDD care, in clinical contexts, as well as outside the hospital.

Topics of interest will include, but will not be limited to:
– Robot-aided diagnosis;
– Robot-assisted therapies;
– Personalized interactions and tailored interventions with robots;
– Social interaction in joint activities with robots;
– Socio-cognitive skills training;
– Robots as communication partners;
– Attention and engagement measures in NDDs;
– Affective interaction and emotional understanding;
– Imitation, perspective taking and empathy;
– Fine motor skills evaluation;
– Social robots in special education;
– Intensive intervention with social robots;
– Assistive social robots at home;
– Specific field applications based on ABA or ESDM approaches.

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INVITED SPEAKERS
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– Brian Scassellati
Yale Social Robotics Laboratory
Yale University

– Jacqueline Nadel
Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle épinière (ICM), CNRS
Hôpital de La Salpêtrière, Sorbonne Université

– David Cohen
Service de Psychiatrie de l’Enfant et de l’Adolescent
Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière, Sorbonne Université

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ARTICLES AND POSTERS
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All submissions should be anonymous and according to the specifications of the IROS 2020: http://ras.papercept.net/conferences/support/support.php
– Full six-page paper submissions will be selected for either an oral presentation or a poster presentation.
– Two-page poster abstract submissions will be selected to encourage discussion. The posters will have a 1 minute “teaser” presentation.
All contributions will be subjected to blind peer review by a minimum of two independent experts in the field.

Contributions should be submitted via the EasyChair website: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icra2020ndd
Submissions are due on February 29th, 2020.

All the contributions (articles, media and related) will be online accessible through the website of the workshop.

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VIDEO SUBMISSIONS AND DEMOS
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Videos are accepted as contributions focused on showing field activities, interventions and achievements involving the use of social robots in NDDs.

Video contributions according to the following specifications should be submitted by directly contacting the chairs of the workshop.
– Duration: between 5 and 20 minutes.
– Format (only one of the following should be used): mpeg, mp4, mpg
– Minimum video quality: 720p
– Minimum frame rate (fps): 24
– Codecs: Do not use special codecs in order to provide as much portability across platforms as possible.
– Audio is optional, but lack of audio should have minimal impact on the comprehension of the video.
– Structure: The video must include at the beginning a video cover with the title, authors and affiliation and the credits at the end.

Submissions are due on February 29th, 2020.

Time and space for live demonstrations will also be granted to willing contributors.

Please, contact the chairs of the workshop before March 31th, 2020.

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WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS
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– Salvatore Maria Anzalone
Laboratoire de Cognition Humaine et Artificielle
Université Paris 8

– Hoang-Long Cao
Brussels Human Robotics Research Center
Vrije Universiteit Brussel

– Mohamed Chetouani
Institut des Systemes Intelligents et de Robotique
Sorbonne Université

– Kerstin Dautenhahn
Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering/Systems Design Engineering
University of Waterloo

This workshop is sponsored and partially financed by the French ANR project iReCheck.

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PROGRAM COMMITTEE
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Paul Baxter, University of Lincoln
Lola Cañamero, University of Hertfordshire
Laurence Chaby, Université Paris Descartes, CNRS
Antonio Chella, Università di Palermo
Pablo Gomez Esteban, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Patrick Henaff, Université de Lorraine, INRIA,CNRS
Giovanni Pioggia, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR)
Silvia Rossi, Università di Napoli Federico II
Emmanuel Senft, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Charles Tijus, Université Paris 8
Bram Vanderborght, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Luke Wood, University of Hertfordshire
 

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CONTACTS
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Email: icra2020ndd@easychair.org
Website: https://icra2020ndd.wordpress.com/