Say hello to Milo – New robot in D-303 helping autistic students

ST. CHARLES – There’s a new robot in town who’s capturing the attention of students whose attention sometimes can’t be captured.

Meet Milo, a 2-foot-tall humanoid robot designed to help students with autism spectrum disorders practice their social, emotional and behavioral skills.

For the past two months, a handful of elementary and middle school students in St. Charles have been working with Milo, who can smile, frown or make a pouty face as he interacts with them. The identification of facial expressions is one of the larger disability areas for children with autism, said Karen Maladra, associate director of interventions for St. Charles School District 303.

“[Milo’s curriculum is] helping to develop some of those cues – what do you look for to find out if someone is sad or happy or angry?” she said. “Kids with autism have to be taught sometimes what we look like when we feel happy or sad so they can respond appropriately to people.”

Students with autism also are often intrigued by technology, so participating in social narratives with a robot – who is connected to a tablet that displays videos to reinforce the lesson – is a real motivator, said Leslee Schilb, a social worker at Wild Rose Elementary School who is using Milo with three students: a fifth-grader, a third-grader and a first-grader.

District 303 is one of only two Illinois school districts to use Milo, said Mark Child, executive director of marketing for RoboKind, the Dallas-based parent company of Robots4Autism that created Milo.

Though Milo’s curriculum and his robotics technology have been in development for about six years, Milo has only been available to schools and autism treatment centers for about a year and a half, Child said. Overall, there are about 300 robots being used in the U.S., Australia, Canada, Europe and Asia.

Last fall, the District 303 Board approved the one-year lease of two robots at a total cost of $12,850. One is at Wild Rose; the other is being used with the Social Thinking Awareness Group for Exceptional Students at Wredling Middle School.

Serving a growing population

When Maladra started her career in the autism field in the 1990s, one in every 10,000 children was affected by an autism spectrum disorder.

Now, autism affects 1 in 68, she said, and 226 students in District 303 have an autism spectrum disorder.

“Kids with autism are a rapidly rising population across the country, so we’re always looking for better ways to service them,” Maladra said.

Superintendent Don Schlomann learned about Milo during an Innovators in Education conference last summer and brought back the concept to his department of instruction team. Team members had their doubts about the new technology, but remained intrigued, especially since Milo’s curriculum was researched-based and came with iPads students could use to practice certain skills, Maladra said.

“I was kind of skeptical of him because you’re teaching social skills with a robot,” Schilb said. “I wasn’t sure how we were going to be able to use him, especially since I feel a lot of my students are higher functioning.”

Milo was developed for students with more profound communication delays, Schilb said, but she has used him to reteach specific skills, such as identifying emotions and having reciprocal conversations.

“I have found that skills we have gone over and we need to continue to practice, when the robot is giving specific information, they are so much more engaged,” she said.

Maladra said it’s too soon to fully grasp Milo’s impact. She suspects he will be most beneficial with younger students as opposed to middle-schoolers, but overall, there is promise.

“Everybody reported that their kids are just glued to him when he’s on,” she said. “Even if the middle-schoolers say, ‘We’re too cool for Milo,’ they still get intrigued. It could possibly be a powerful tool.”

Looking ahead

One of Milo’s most promising social behavior lessons is the calm down module, which teaches students different techniques – counting to 10, taking a deep breath, taking a break from an activity – to help relax, Maladra said.

“One of the biggest factors [we face is] if a student can stay in an integrated setting,” Maladra said. “When you get upset, you can’t just fly off the handle; you have to know how to control your emotions.”

Schilb said she hopes Milo’s curriculum develops to include more complex skills, which could benefit more of her students.

Fortunately, Milo is an evolving robot whose comprehensive curriculum is continually expanding based on feedback from districts such as St. Charles, Child said. Modules for higher functioning students are being created, such as how to behave during play dates, and how to open a birthday present.

“We’re constantly looking for partners like St. Charles where we can find [a] broader application than what we’re seeing … and build curriculum around that,” he said.