Franceli Linney Cibrian, Nadir Weibel, M. Tentori
Sep 12, 2016
Citations
3
Influential Citations
13
Citations
Journal
Proceedings of the 2016 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing
Abstract
Early instruction plays a crucial role in allowing toddlers to develop social, cognitive, and sensory-motor skills. Free play is important in any early development program, but designing activities for free play is challenging. In this paper, we investigate the use of an interactive surface, BendableSound, a fabric-based interactive surface that enables young children to play piano sounds when touching the fabric, and its potential value in early education classrooms. We conducted a 9-week exploratory study in which 22 toddlers and 5 teachers used BendableSound during free play activities inside their classroom. Our qualitative results indicate that BendableSound was successfully adopted and integrated in toddler classrooms and could positively impact cognitive, social, and physical development. These results offer implications for the design of deformable surfaces and for their integration in activities to support the early development of toddlers.