Radio Free Europe, Ankica Barbir-Mladinovic, January 26, 2014
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| Four-year old Croatian boy Luka (left), who has autism spectrum has developed an unusual friendship with a robot called Rene. |
ZAGREB --
Four-year-old Luka is enthusiastic about his new friend.
"He
can write. He can sit down. And he can drink water," he says.
The two
also like to dance together.
But it is
an unusual friendship. Luka is a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a
developmental disability that inhibits social, behavioral, and communications
skills. And his friend, Rene, is a robot.
They met
thanks to a joint project of the University of Zagreb's Faculty of Education
and Rehabilitation Sciences and its Faculty of Electronics and Computer
Sciences. The initiative aims to use robots to improve the diagnosis and
assessment of children with the disorder, a process that until now has been
highly complex and subjective.
The robot
is intended to assist, not replace the clinician.
"For
children with autism, the robot is a stimulus that is very simple and always
the same," says researcher Jasmina Stosic. "Its eyes are always in
the same place. Its mouth is always in the same place. People are rather
complicated for such children because when we talk we make various gestures.
And one day we'll wear a red t-shirt and the next day, a blue one. The robot is
one constant stimulus, and the children don't need to think about so much
different information and instead can concentrate on the essence."
Because of
the difficulties of assessment, ASD children are often diagnosed quite late. In
Croatia, most ASD children are only diagnosed and begin receiving specialized
education and therapy at around 5 or 6 years of age.
WATCH: A
Robot Gives A Demonstration Of Tai-Chi Exercises At A Zagreb Lab
Marija
Cukelj, whose 4-year-old son Filip is part of the robot project, has
experienced the frustration of trying to get specialist assistance for children
who are younger than this.
"Filip
started to close down when he was 14 or 15 months of age," he says.
"He stopped looking people in the eye -- even us, his parents. Within
about two months we started looking for help. Unfortunately, it took time
because he was 1 1/2 [years old] and we were told: 'The child is too small,
anything could happen. We need to wait and see.' It took a year between the
time we told doctors something was wrong and when our son got a reliable
diagnosis. We lost that time."
According
to Cukelj, meeting Rene was a ground-breaking moment for Filip.
"The
first time he saw the robot, he simply sat on a chair and watched it,"
Cukelj says. "For Filip, who is so energetic and who is calmed down by
very few things, it was a great success to see him sit down and carefully watch
something."
Positive
Reactions
Researcher
Maja Cepanec says that Rene has elicited positive reactions in trials with
children so far.
"Children
with attention-deficit issues, who have trouble making eye contact, react
relatively well to the robot," she says. "They watch it and they are
excited about it. So far, our experiences have been relatively positive."
Rene was
made in France and several research institutions around the world have been
using similar robots to work with ASD children.
The researchers in Croatia, however, are focusing on using the robots to
develop a standardized diagnostic protocol.
Cepanec
says the goal of the project is to use the robot to collect data on, for
instance, recurrences of repetitive behavior, and to conduct uniform testing of
particular behaviors such as drinking from a cup or addressing the robot by
name.
"We
believe that ASD assessment, empowered by advanced behavioral and social-signal
processing, might become more objective and reliable," says Cepanec. This
improved process would also include using objective quantitative metrics.
"The
robot is equipped with a camera, microphones, speakers, and it can record
things we might miss," says Cepanec. "It can code a child's
vocalizations, his or her closeness to the parent, how many times the child
initiates communication, how much eye contact the child makes, and so on."
In order to
build on the project's promising start, the researchers are working with the
Croatian National Science Fund and European sources in hopes of expanding the
number of children they can include in their research.
Related Article:
Human Evolution – 27 Sep 2008 (a message from Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll)
“.. What do you think the Human brain can really do? What do you think it's built to do? Let me give you an example of what your society has come to accept as an "unbalanced person." Some of you think it's a "sick person." Let me talk about the autistic one. Let us talk about autism in what you call the most severe case.
Blessed is the autistic one who has come to this earth to show you what future Human evolvement looks like! They spend a lifetime trying to figure out linearity and it frustrates them. Blessed is the savant who the earth looks at and calls unbalanced. For the Humans who do this cannot see what they don't understand. The autistic one is able to get up off the paper and be in color! Many of the autistic ones can do what your calculators can do on your desks, did you know that? And they don't need a calculator! Give them a problem - two digits multiplied by three digits. Now watch how fast they give you the answer. Because they're not linear! Ask them what weekday the 13th of August will be in 2012, and they'll tell you, and they don't need a calendar. You might say, "What kind of a mind can do that?" I'll tell you - a nonlinear one without the walls in the brain that you have.
Blessed is the autistic one who has come to this earth to show you what future Human evolvement looks like! They spend a lifetime trying to figure out linearity and it frustrates them. Blessed is the savant who the earth looks at and calls unbalanced. For the Humans who do this cannot see what they don't understand. The autistic one is able to get up off the paper and be in color! Many of the autistic ones can do what your calculators can do on your desks, did you know that? And they don't need a calculator! Give them a problem - two digits multiplied by three digits. Now watch how fast they give you the answer. Because they're not linear! Ask them what weekday the 13th of August will be in 2012, and they'll tell you, and they don't need a calendar. You might say, "What kind of a mind can do that?" I'll tell you - a nonlinear one without the walls in the brain that you have.
Have you ever thought about that? The autistic have a nonlinear mind. The barriers are dropped. Can you imagine the frustration of this Human? Here he is in a world of black and white while he is in color. Not only that, you want him to go in a straight line when he is used to all directions at once. This also explains why the only energies that will work to calm him are interdimensional ones - music, art, and love. Does this start to make sense to you? (see below)
What is taking place, dear ones, for all to know and see and understand, is that very, very slowly you have the linearity of the Human brain starting to be reduced. Unlike the autistic, it will be in ways that will still be balanced and make sense. In other words, you will be able to move in and out of quantum thought any time you wish in order to live in a linear, 3D existence, but have quantum consciousness. It will be a return to a form of consciousness that Lemurians had, but with the wisdom of the ages that you have collected. This will not be fast, but the forerunners of that are already here.
I'm going to give you some attributes of Human evolution in a moment, but let's return to the autistic ones. Many reading this are very concerned about autism. You wish to know why there are so many autistics being born. You say it's beyond coincidence that there are suddenly so many! There's more autistic children being born today than there ever have been on this planet. Humans are scurrying around wanting to know what's wrong. Is it the chemistry of the food? Perhaps it must be vaccinations! Some are saying, without any proof, "Yes, that's it - vaccinations must be it." You are grasping at almost anything to solve the puzzle of why so many autistics are arriving.
Yet very few Humans, if any, have looked at the puzzle and said, "Perhaps we're evolving, and this is the first wave of what we're going to see?" Not mentally unbalanced, but nonlinear thinking! This is, indeed, the case. You are seeing a form of evolution and you are calling it odd and unusual. It's simply those who are coming in early with activated quantum DNA. This early forerunner has DNA activated in an uncontrolled way, and so learning is needed to know how to make sense of it all. This is what they are doing, and each generation of savant will have a better time of it, figuring out what is linear and what is not.
Watch the autistic child go through what they must do (autism in its most severe form). They are so nonlinear that there is incredible frustration in trying to linearize even the Human voice as you speak to them. They will do the same actions over and over and over, trying to linearize the nonlinear. The linear walls are gone in their brain, and they have to learn to build the ones that they need. Humans then see them as a problem, and it's not a problem. It's a form of gifted children who are helping this planet to grow. Blessed are those who come into Earth as the new wave of consciousness to show you where it's going. They are setting the stage for a new kind of Human. For this quantumness will develop in a balanced way where many will have the autistic talents where they want them, and the linear when they want that. That's what the Human mind is capable of - being quantum when they wish to be. That's a return to the way it was given to you. ‘’
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