{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,13]],"date-time":"2026-07-13T14:37:39Z","timestamp":1783953459164,"version":"3.55.0"},"reference-count":56,"publisher":"American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)","issue":"109","funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100011102","name":"Seventh Framework Programme","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["611391"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["611391"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100011102","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.science.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Sci. Robot."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,17]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>\n                    The use of social robots in therapy for children with autism has been explored for more than 20 years, but there still is limited clinical evidence. The work presented here provides a systematic approach to evaluating both efficacy and effectiveness, bridging the gap between theory and practice by targeting joint attention, imitation, and turn-taking as core developmental mechanisms that can make a difference in autism interventions. We present two randomized clinical trials with different robot-assisted therapy implementations aimed at young children. The first is an efficacy trial (\n                    <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">n<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u00a0=\u00a069; mean age\u00a0=\u00a04.4 years) showing that 12 biweekly sessions of in-clinic robot-assisted therapy achieve equivalent outcomes to conventional treatment but with a significant increase in the patients\u2019 engagement. The second trial (\n                    <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">n<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u00a0=\u00a063; mean age\u00a0=\u00a05.9 years) evaluates the effectiveness in real-world settings by substituting the clinical setup with a simpler one for use in schools or homes. Over the course of a modest dosage of five sessions, we show equivalent outcomes to standard treatment. Both efficacy and effectiveness trials lend further credibility to the beneficial role that social robots can play in autism therapy while also highlighting the potential advantages of portable and cost-effective setups.\n                  <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1126\/scirobotics.adl2266","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,24]],"date-time":"2025-12-24T18:58:42Z","timestamp":1766602722000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.34133\/aaas_crossmark","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":5,"title":["Efficacy and effectiveness of robot-assisted therapy for autism spectrum disorder: From lab to reality"],"prefix":"10.1126","volume":"10","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9081-423X","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Daniel","family":"David","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Babe\u0219-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania."},{"name":"Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7299-9234","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Paul","family":"Baxter","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Computer Science, University of Lincoln, Lincoln, UK."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5207-7745","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Tony","family":"Belpaeme","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"IDLab-AIRO, Ghent University &amp; imec, Ghent, Belgium."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6568-9342","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Erik","family":"Billing","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Informatics, University of Sk\u00f6vde, Sk\u00f6vde, Sweden."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2759-3665","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Haibin","family":"Cai","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2851-5527","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Hoang-Long","family":"Cao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Brubotics, Vrije Universiteit Brussel &amp; imec, Brussels, Belgium."},{"name":"College of Engineering, Can Tho University, Can Tho City, Vietnam."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Anamaria","family":"Ciocan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Babe\u0219-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Cristina","family":"Costescu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Babe\u0219-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9296-9692","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Daniel","family":"Hernandez Garcia","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0005-5032-9036","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Pablo","family":"G\u00f3mez Esteban","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Brubotics, Vrije Universiteit Brussel &amp; imec, Brussels, Belgium."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2760-8318","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"James","family":"Kennedy","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre for Robotics and Neural Systems, Plymouth University, Plymouth, UK."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Honghai","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Computing, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Silviu","family":"Matu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Babe\u0219-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0001-0518-6233","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Alexandre","family":"Mazel","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Human Machine Interaction, Paris, France."},{"name":"Softbank Robotics, Paris, France."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Mihaela","family":"Selescu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Babe\u0219-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7160-4352","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Emmanuel","family":"Senft","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"IDIAP Research Institute, Martigny, Switzerland."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1177-4119","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Serge","family":"Thill","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition &amp; 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