Many children on the autism spectrum respond positively to robots, and interaction with socially assistive robots generally improves the social behaviors of children with autism, in addition to motivating them to learn. With support from the National Science Foundation, roboticist Maja Mataric, educational psychologist Gisele Ragusa, and a team in the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California are developing fundamental computational techniques that will enable the design, implementation, and evaluation of robots that encourage social and cognitive growth in children with autism spectrum disorder and other developmental challenges.