Task-Based Automatic Evaluation of People with Intellectual Disabilities Performed on a Robotic Table Soccer.

Area of Science:

• Rehabilitation Engineering
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Disability Studies

Background:

• Assessing individuals with intellectual disabilities often relies on subjective methods.
• The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) provides a framework for classifying functional abilities.
• Conventional table (CT) soccer has limitations in objective performance measurement for this population.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate an automatic system for assessing tasks performed by individuals with intellectual disabilities.
• To compare performance in conventional table (CT) soccer versus robotics table (RT) soccer.
• To identify differences in task execution and reaction times using an automated approach.

Main Methods:

• Participants with intellectual disabilities were divided into two groups: no difficulty (N) and difficulty (D) based on CT soccer performance.
• Three tasks of varying difficulty were designed for evaluation.
• Performance was assessed on both CT soccer and a novel RT soccer setup with joystick control.
• An automatic evaluation system was employed to collect data, including reaction times.

Main Results:

• All participants successfully performed tasks using the joystick on the RT soccer.
• The automatic evaluation system detected significant differences in reaction times when a red color flag was present versus absent.
• One task was completed by all participants exclusively using the RT soccer interface.

Conclusions:

• Robotics table (RT) soccer provides a viable platform for the automatic evaluation of individuals with intellectual disabilities.
• The developed automatic evaluation system can objectively measure performance differences, such as reaction times.
• RT soccer offers a controlled environment that facilitates task completion and assessment for individuals with intellectual disabilities.