A robot helps children express their feelings
Where can you go as a child with your secrets? If it is difficult to tell what is bothering you, a cuddle robot will help you talk about it.
"Shut your mouth, stupid!" Just like that, it's out. Impulse control can be complicated for young children. How do you deal with that classmate who whispers too loudly? How do you deal with your own annoyance and how do you address it before you 'explode'? A young child should be able to retreat at any time to express their feelings, believes Nick van Breda, co-initiator of SAMbuddy. This applies not only to children who struggle with impulse control, but also to introverted children and all other children who would just like to get their story out.
SAMbuddy, the listening cuddly toy
"He is sweet, nice and soft and you can talk to him well without anyone noticing."
Emotions sometimes get in the way of learning
Joanne Coes, internal supervisor at Christian primary school Anne de Vries: "Children sometimes come into the classroom full of emotion. And cannot then focus their attention on the lesson as well. As a teacher, you cannot directly leave the classroom to talk to a child. The SAMbuddy robot helps children so they have somewhere to turn with their story at just that moment."
"Children in groups 1 to 3 often have their own favourite cuddly toy that makes them feel safe."
Joanne Coes
Internal supervisor at Christian primary school Anne de Vries
The right questions help the child tell all
The robot asks the right questions to help the child tell his story. This gives the child a better understanding of what exactly happened. And how he can deal with it. The robot can also help in other situations that cause a child to feel out of sorts, such as problems at home or lack of social connection. Does the child want the teacher to hear his problem too? Then he presses a record button, and the teacher can listen to it later.
Plush fish becomes friend
Trust is a key component. What makes a child trust a robot?
This makes the cuddly toy feel secure and safe
The strength of the cuddly toy is that it makes children feel safe, secure. How do we optimise that? With that question, Nick van Breda knocked on the door of Matthijs Smakman, researcher at Meaningful Digital Innovation research group and lecturer in the Social Robotics minor. As research for their minor, his students visited schools to test the cuddly robot on children.
A SAMbuddy at every school?
SAMbuddy is still in its infancy. What does the future look like?
Finding solutions together
SAMbuddy needs to become more and more of a confidant for young children. To make this happen, Nick and the other founders of the Share Stuffed Toy are working with people with different areas of expertise: the children themselves, teachers, parents, a researcher who understands ethics in social robots and students with the latest knowledge of IT. And also with the cuddly toy developer at The Cuddle Factory, where people with a labour market disadvantage put together SAMbuddy.
Credits
Research, education and practice converge
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