The next generation of play
Renée van den Heuvel, Monique Lexis, Luc de Witte
This article summarizes the research which has been done in the context of a PhD thesis in the field of robots for children with severe physical disabilities. Because children with physical disabilities are often limited in their play possibilities, technology might offer new possibilities. In intensive collaboration with rehabilitation and special education professionals the goals for application of robot platforms were determined and two different robot platforms were tested in practice. It can be concluded that robots show promising and meaningful contributions in supporting play and predetermined goals in the context for rehabilitation and special education.
More research is necessary to discover the effectiveness of the robots and to ascertain application possibilities more in detail.
Keywords
Play, robot, children with physical disabilities, rehabilitation, special education
