Sense-Based User Interface (SUI) Platforms to Detect Children's Physical and Emotional Behaviors

Abstract

With the rapid development of digital entertainment and educational content, young children of five or under are exposed to digital input/output devices. Their social skills are essential in physical and emotional development and can be acquired through cooperative activities with peers of the same age. However, with the increase in digital input/output devices, social isolation of young children is a critical problem, resulting in a lack of social, language, and self-regulation skills. This study introduces sense-based user interface (SUI) platforms that can seamlessly interact with young children to collect and analyze children's physical and emotional behaviors through flexible sensors. Specifically, we designed SUI platforms by integrating flexible pressure and touch sensors into a toy drum, a familiar and engaging object for young children. Synchronous systems are developed to collect data instantaneously when the child strikes the drum in response to the teacher's instruction, and the collected data in real-time can be visualized to analyze children's physical and emotional behaviors. The synchronous SUI platform can compare the characteristic development status between exceptional and regular children. The proposed SUI platforms are expected to evaluate early childhood development characteristics like motor, interaction, and self-regulation skills.