This adorable robot is helping us learn more about children, autism and the way humans connect

A small humanoid robot is helping researchers explore how autistic and non-autistic children build connections through movement, rhythm, and timing – a phenomenon known as social synchrony.

The project is part of a PhD by Carly McGregor, 26, at Cardiff University’s School of Psychology. It’s co-supervised by developmental psychologist Dr Catherine Jones (director of the Wales Autism Research Centre), Dr Chris Wallbridge and Dr Elisabeth von dem Hagen. Working across disciplines, the team is using robotics to study social synchrony – the natural, often unconscious process of moving in time with another person.

“Social synchrony is how we time our movements with another person,” explains Dr Jones. “It’s all the nonverbal cues, the verbal cues… when you have a strong feeling of rapport and affiliation with another person, you are more synchronised with them. You are more in time.”

In daily life, this shows up in subtle ways – walking in step, nodding at the same pace, or finishing each other’s sentences. These moments of being “in sync” often reflect or reinforce social connection. But previous research has suggested that autistic people may show different patterns of synchrony than non-autistic people, particularly in interactions with others.

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The Cardiff study set out to explore whether those patterns might shift when the interaction involves a robot instead of a human partner.

“From an experimental psychology perspective, robots afford really useful control,” says Dr Jones. “You can’t ask a person to move at exactly the same speed or timing again and again – but a robot can.”

To test this, the researchers used a NAO robot – a childlike humanoid robot with cartoonish proportions, big eyes and soft gestures. Standing just under two feet tall, NAO is already widely used in classrooms and therapeutic settings because of its friendly and non-threatening appearance, especially useful for children who may find human interactions overwhelming.

“Because it’s a childlike robot, we don’t expect it to be too sophisticated,” adds Dr Wallbridge. “People see a very complicated or very humanlike robot, and if it’s not able to interact as naturally as they expect, that contributes to an uncanny valley effect.”

In McGregor’s study, primary-school-aged children – both autistic and non-autistic – were asked to interact with NAO in a rhythmic tapping activity. Some tapped in time with the robot; others tapped deliberately out of sync.

McGregor, originally from the United States, came to this research through a dual background in psychology and computer science. “This area seemed like a good fit for my skill set,” she says. “While there are many studies, interventions, and therapies that are designed to improve the lives of autistic people, these have not always been conducted in ways that make autistic individuals feel supported, respected, and understood. The field of autism research has been making strides in recent years to rectify this, and I wanted to be part of this change.”

Robots like NAO have long been used in education as tools for personalised or consistent interaction. In classroom settings, they often act as peer learners – robots that appear to learn alongside children rather than instructing them. For children with additional needs, this approach can be particularly effective: the robot is predictable, non-judgmental, and doesn’t carry the same social complexities as a human.

And while for some, the idea of robots in schools may still sound futuristic, Wallbridge points out that mainstream tech often starts in special education.

“Speech recognition, for instance, started out for people who couldn’t use keyboards or a mouse. But now it’s on all our phones,” he says. “A lot of this technology gets developed for people with special needs, and then ends up becoming part of the mainstream.”

McGregor’s recently submitted PhD thesis is a step toward understanding how connection might look different for different children. As developmental psychology increasingly intersects with robotics, projects like this may help reshape how we think about communication, inclusion and what it really means to feel “in sync”.

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