Non-formal therapy and learning potentials through human gesture synchronised to robotic gesture

Children with severe physical disabilities have limited possibilities for joyful experiences and interactive play. Physical training and therapy to improve such opportunities for these children is often enduring, tedious and boring through repetition - And this is often the case for both patient and the facilitator or therapist. The aim of the study reported in this paper was to explore how children with a severe physical disability could use an easily accessible robotic device that enabled control of projected images towards achieving joyful experiences and interactive play, so as to give opportunities for use as a supplement to traditional rehabilitation therapy sessions. The process involves the capturing of gesture data through an intuitive non-intrusive interface. The interface is invisible to the naked eye and offers a direct and immediate association between the child's physical feed-forward gesture and the physical reaction (feedback) of the robotic device. Results from multiple sessions with four children with severe physical disability suggest that the potential of non-intrusive interaction with a multimedia robotic device that is capable of giving synchronized physical response offers additional opportunities, and motivated non-formal potentials in therapy and learning to supplement the field. © Springer-Verlag 2007.