Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) pay greater attention to a social robot—which is designed to engage with people using structured social cues such as gestures, postures, motions, and gaze direction in communicative contexts—than to a human being. The Don Gnocchi Foundation conducted a study in partnership with the Polytechnic University of Milan, which was published in the Asian Journal of Psychiatry. The researchers specifically examined "shared attention"—the ability to share attention with another person toward something (an item, an event)—in preschoolers diagnosed with ASD and generally developing children, comparing interactions with a therapist and a robot. It turned out that children with ASD paid more attention to the stimuli offered by the robot, making it a beneficial "ally" to the therapist. Silvia Annunziata, the study's author and a child neuropsychiatrist, stated that "this aspect is potentially clinically relevant, as it could be exploited to facilitate attention, promote active participation, and support robot-assisted therapeutic interventions aimed at enhancing social and communication skills". According to Anna Cavallini, director of the Don Gnocchi Foundation's Department of Neuropsychiatry and Developmental Rehabilitation, "The literature suggests that social robots are more accessible to children with autism spectrum disorder not because they are more interesting in themselves, but because they offer structured contexts and social stimuli that are more predictable and less complex than human interaction. These allow children to gain experience with relationships and communication, which promotes engagement and creates new learning opportunities. The goal is to transfer these skills into everyday life, also involving families".