Stories and Voice Agents to Support Social Roleplay for Preschool Children

To better support children's development of social skills through activities like face-to-face social roleplay, child-computer interaction researchers have employed a variety of strategies, with recent focus on tangible and embodied interactions. This article presents the results of a study conducted in South America focused on supporting face-to-face social roleplay for typically developing preschool children, examining the effect of adding and removing the digital layer of the tangible system. The results of the study provide insights into the challenges of supporting children moving to more complex forms of social roleplay, the diverse impact of adding and removing digital layers of tangible devices across children, and the ways in which what may appear as minor cultural differences can impact the deployment of a system to support social roleplay among preschool children.