Preschool children’s engagement with a social robot during early literacy and language activities

Social robots can interact and communicate with young children and have the potential to act as teaching instructors to support early literacy and language learning. It is important to understand how social robots could be used to engage preschool children in learning these skills which are foundational to future academic success. Therefore, this study explored how young children engaged with a social robot during early literacy and language activities and examined the associations between children’s engagement, emotions, utterances, writing and drawing. The participants were English speaking children (N = 35; Mean age = 4.36 years) attending preschool in Australia. In a one-to-one session with a social robot instructor (NAO), children completed early literacy and language activities. Each child-robot session was observed and video recorded. Child engagement, positive and negative emotions, words uttered, letter and name writing, and robot drawing were scored. Overall, most children engaged positively with the social robot, followed its instructions, and completed the literacy and language activities. A positive association was found between children’s engagement with the social robot and drawing; and children who were more engaged with the social robot expressed fewer negative emotions. These findings suggest that social robots can be used as instructors to positively engage preschoolers during literacy and language learning activities.