Research and development of social robotic applications for young children have been growing rapidly since 2010. Considerable research has demonstrated the positive impacts of social robots on children’s learning and development in various domains. Nonetheless, our knowledge about child/robot interaction is still fragmented across several disciplines. This workshop aimed to elucidate the current status of designing and evaluating the efficacy of child/robot collaborative systems and prioritize research challenges. The workshop confirmed the educational potential of embodied sociable robots for physical, socio-emotional, and intellectual development of young children. There was a consensus among the participants that research on child robot interaction necessitated multidisciplinary collaboration to develop pedagogically and technologically sound applications. This report intends to inform interested researchers from learning and computer sciences about future research in child/robot collaborative systems.
Citation:
Kim, Y. & Huang, L. (2021). Robots, Young Children, & Alternative Input Methods. In Rapid Community Report Series.
