Congratulations to the researchers at IRD! Our article «Robot Assisted Interventions for Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities: Impact on Users and Caregivers» got published in prestigious «International Journal of Social Robotics».

Recent advancements in socially assistive robotics (SAR) have shown a vital potential and have thus inspired us to explore the benefits of robot assisted cognitive rehabilitation of individuals with intellectual disability (ID). Accordingly, the aim of this research was to evaluate the fitness of robot-assisted mental health interventions among individuals with ID and to assess its impact on the users and their caregivers.

The results reported positive effects of such interventions on the users, mainly an increase in the engagement. The results also confirmed a significant reduction in caregivers burden and raise a concern about the need for a specific training of the caregivers to take maximum advantage of SAR empowered cognitive rehabilitation.

This work provides valuable insights for the development of robot-assisted interventions for cognitive rehabilitation of people with ID.

The article can be accessed online at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12369-019-00527-w.