Towards Emotion Co-regulation with LLM-powered Socially Assistive Robots: Integrating LLM Prompts and Robotic Behaviors to Support Parent-Neurodivergent Child Dyads

Abstract: Socially Assistive Robotics (SAR) has shown promise in supporting emotion regulation for neurodivergent children. Recently, there has been increasing interest in leveraging advanced technologies to assist parents in co-regulating emotions with their children. However, limited research has explored the integration of LLMs with SAR to facilitate emotion co-regulation between parents and children with neurodevelopmental disorders. To address this gap, we developed an LLM-powered social robot by deploying a speech communication module on the MiRo-E robotic platform. This supervised autonomous system integrates LLM prompts and robotic behaviors to deliver tailored interventions for both parents and neurodivergent children. Pilot tests were conducted with two parent-child dyads, followed by a qualitative analysis. The findings reveal MiRo-E's positive impacts on interaction dynamics and its potential to facilitate emotion regulation, along with identified design and technical challenges. Based on these insights, we provide design implications to advance the future development of LLM-powered SAR for mental health applications.