Participation and Enjoyment in Play with a Robot between Children with Cerebral Palsy who use AAC and their Peers

Abstract

This study explores children with complex communication needs, their peers and adult support persons in play with the talking and moving robot LekBot. Two triads were filmed playing with LekBot at pre-school. LekBot was developed to facilitate independent and enjoyable play on equal terms for children with significant communication disabilities and their peers. Using Conversation Analysis, participatory symmetry and enjoyment were investigated in relation to spoken and gestural communication, embodied stance, gaze, and affective display. Data originated from three video-recorded sessions that were approximately 2 hours long. Four different interaction situations were identified and explored: Participatory Asymmetry, Adult Facilitation, Greater Participatory Symmetry and Creativity, and Turn-taking and Enjoyable Play with LekBot. Neither participatory symmetry nor enjoyment were easily achieved in the play sessions and may require considerable effort, including adult involvement, but creative, spontaneous and highly enjoyable play, correlating with participatory symmetry to various degrees, was observed in a few instances. The findings are discussed with regard to play, AAC and the future development of robots to facilitate play.

Keywords::

• Augmentative and alternative communication
• Cerebral palsy
• Children
• Complex communication needs
• Peers
• Robotics
• Play
• Participation
• Enjoyment

Notes

Acknowledgements

LekBot is a result of many peoples’ enthusiasm and work. Special thanks to the children and the adult support persons involved in this study. Thanks also to Acapela for providing the Swedish TTS voices for the touch-screen computer and the bumblebee.

LekBot has been presented at the conference of the European Academy of Childhood Disability (EACD) in Rome, 2011; at the Swedish Language Technology Conference (SLTC) in Linköping, Sweden, 2010; and at the Workshop on Speech and Language Processing for Assistive Technologies SLPAT in Edinburgh, 2011.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the writing and content of the paper.

LekBot has received financial support from the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems VINNOVA, The Promobilia Foundation, The Petter Silfverskiöld Foundation, and The Research Council of the Swedish National Association for Disabled Children and Young People.

Supplementary material available online

Supplementary Appendix to be found online at http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/07434618.2015.1029141

Notes

1. Speech synthesis Acapela (www.acapela-group.com).

2. LEGO^® MINDSTORMS^® NXT (www.lego.com).

3. The software Programsnickaren^® is a product of Abilia (www.abilia.com/sv).

4. The computer Light Rolltalk^® is a product of Abilia (www.abilia.com/sv).

5. The software SymbolStix^® is a product of n2y (www.n2y.com).

6. Blissymbolics (www.blissymbolics.org).