When children engage and progress, it changes everything — for them and for you.
As a human instructor, you're often less engaging to children with special needs, especially those who resist human-directed interaction. You're working against the current, and it's exhausting.
Getting children to engage and building their foundational social skills is the prerequisite for everything else in your work — but until now, you've had no tools to help you do it.
This is how the field has always operated. But it doesn't have to be.
Children naturally engage with robots. Daisy uses this to your advantage — giving you a non-threatening, approachable partner that creates a safe, predictable, and non-judgmental space — opening the door to cooperation.
Through the robot, you can build the foundational social skills that make human-to-human interaction possible. Daisy isn't your replacement — it's the partner you've been missing. You dictate the robot's behavior based on your session goals and each child's needs.
The structured fading protocol (ARRoW) ensures the robot steps back as the child progresses toward independent human interaction. You stay in control throughout. This is the structural answer to "won't children become dependent on the robot?" — the method is designed so they don't.
The Daisy System is not just a robot — it's a complete system designed for practitioners. You control the robot, create your own session content, and follow a structured intervention method. No programming required.
A soft, plush robot designed to be approachable and non-threatening. Children engage with it naturally. You control every action — The Daisy never operates autonomously.
An Android app that puts you in charge during sessions. Control the robot's speech, movements, and responses in real time, directly from your phone or tablet.
The app includes a built-in scripting tool that lets you create session scenarios, dialogues, and robot behaviors — without writing a single line of code. Pre-build sessions tailored to your practice, then reuse and refine them over time.
In controlled studies conducted at the University of Macedonia, children showed measurable improvement in social skills from baseline to final assessment — gains that were retained and generalized more than one month after the intervention ended.
The system was presented at the Special Committee on Research and Technology, recognizing its contribution to the field of social assistive robotics.
[Testimonial quote from practitioner — to be provided by Evelina]— [Name], [Title/Role], [Organization]
The Daisy System is a social assistive robotics system — it includes a robot (The Daisy), a controller app (the Margarita App), and a structured intervention protocol (ARRoW). It's designed for special education therapists working with children who lack engagement — with activities, with people, or with the therapeutic process itself.
Together, these give you a structured way to build engagement, develop foundational social skills, and move children toward successful human-to-human interaction.
Daisy is built for speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, special educators, psychologists, and the centers and organizations that employ them. If you work with children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or other developmental needs — particularly children who resist human-directed interaction — Daisy gives you a structured way to build engagement and the social skills that make your broader work possible.
ARRoW is a five-step fading intervention protocol built into the Daisy methodology. It's designed to answer one of the most common concerns about using robots in therapy: "Won't the child become dependent on the robot?"
The five steps systematically reduce the robot's role as the child progresses:
The goal is always human-to-human interaction. The robot is the bridge, not the destination.
Yes. The Margarita App includes a built-in scripting tool that lets you create session scenarios, dialogues, and robot behaviors without any programming knowledge. Every script you create combines your clinical expertise with the robot's capabilities and each child's specific needs — making it a reusable asset that grows more valuable over time.
The more you build, the richer your practice becomes.
Daisy has been used with children with ASD in both individual and group settings. It has shown particular promise with children who present with Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) — those who resist human-directed instructions but engage readily when the instruction source is a non-human agent like the robot.
Specific age ranges and suitability depend on the intervention goals and the practitioner's judgment.
The Daisy System has been the subject of 7+ peer-reviewed publications in international journals. Research conducted at the University of Macedonia found a 23% improvement in children's social skills from baseline to final assessment, with gains retained and generalized over a month after the intervention ended.
These are results from controlled university-led studies with small participant groups — they represent promising early evidence and the scientific foundation of the system.
Contact us to discuss your needs. We'll walk you through the system, answer your questions, and explore whether a pilot deployment is the right next step for your organization.
Prof. Nikolaos Fachantidis presents the Daisy System at [conference]. [One sentence on topic or audience — to be provided.]
[Short description — e.g., new publication, pilot completion, partnership announcement. To be provided.]
The Daisy System was presented at the Special Committee on Research and Technology, recognizing its contribution to the field of social assistive robotics.
Symvalo Robotics is a spinoff in formation from the LIRES Lab at the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki. The company brings together expertise in robotics, special education, software development, and business development to make social assistive robotics accessible to the professionals who need it.
Daisy was developed through years of academic research and field testing. Symvalo's mission is to bring this work from the lab into everyday practice — giving professionals a structured, evidence-informed tool they can rely on.
Whether you're exploring options for your center, planning a pilot, or simply want to learn more — we'd like to hear from you.