EXP: Collaborative Research: A Personalized Storyteller Companion to Promote Preschooler Language Skills

早期语言能力，包括学龄前的词汇技能和口语知识，是儿童在随后学年学业成功的重要预测指标。社交机器人可以让孩子们作为个性化的学习伙伴，在增加孩子们与父母和老师的学习体验方面有着巨大的希望。最终目标是促进儿童的发展，学习和促进学业成就和福祉。这样的机器人提供了独特的机会，指导，个性化和控制的社会互动，在交付所需的课程。他们可以在现实世界中与孩子们玩耍、学习和互动——身体上、社交上和情感上。这个研究项目正在开发和评估一种自主的个性化社交机器人导师-伴侣，它可以在长期的互动中让学龄前儿童参与讲故事的活动。研究的目的是评估这种互动对儿童语言技能发展的影响。该项目推进了自主故事生成和分析领域，以及自主社交机器人与学龄前儿童之间的互动，以促进学习。其更广泛的影响是开发一种有效的技术，以个性化和社会参与的方式促进儿童语言发展的学前环境。本研究项目开发并评估了一种自主的、个性化的社交机器人的功效，该机器人作为学习伙伴参与学龄前儿童在讲故事任务的背景下的语言发展。为此，该研究项目开发了一种新颖的自动故事分析工具和一种新的个性化故事生成算法，推动了目前对自由形式故事的理解，以及如何促进学龄前儿童早期语言技能的发展。此外，该研究还开发了一种完全自主的社交机器人，可以在幼儿园的现实环境中与学龄前儿童互动。在多个幼儿园进行了为期9个月的纵向研究，以评估与讲故事机器人的长期互动对儿童参与和语言技能发展的影响。该研究旨在增加目前对与社交机器人纵向互动对儿童语言发展影响的理解。最终，这可以为家庭、教室和其他地方的早期识字前教育和语言教育（以及STEM等其他领域）激发新的工具和实践。

Early language ability, including vocabulary skills and oral language knowledge during preschool, is an important predictor of children's academic success in subsequent school years. Social robots that can engage children as personalized learning companions hold great promise in augmenting the learning experience of children with parents and teachers. The ultimate goal is to foster the development, learning and promotion of academic achievements and the well-being of children. Such robots offer unique opportunities of guided, personalized and controlled social interaction during the delivery of a desired curriculum. They can play, learn and engage with children in the real world -- physically, socially and emotively. This research project is developing and evaluating an autonomous personalized social robot tutor-companion that can engage preschool children in storytelling activities during a long-term interaction. The research goal is to assess the impact that such an interaction may have on children's language skills development. The project advances the fields of autonomous storytelling generation and analysis, as well as the interaction between autonomous social robots and preschool children to promote learning. Its broader impact is to develop an effective technology that augments the preschool setting that promotes children's language development in a personalized and socially engaging way. This research project develops and assesses the efficacy of an autonomous, personalized social robot that engages as a learning companion on the language development of pre-school children in the context of storytelling tasks. For this purpose, the research project develops a novel automatic story analysis tool, and a new personalized story generation algorithm, that pushes the envelope of current understanding of free-form storytelling and how fosters the development of early language skills in pre-school aged children. Additionally, the research develops of a fully autonomous social robot that interacts with preschool children in the real-life environment of a preschool. A 9-month longitudinal study at multiple preschool sites is carried out to evaluate the impact of long-term interaction with the storytelling robot on children's engagement and language skill development. The research aims to increase the current understanding of the impact of longitudinal interaction with social robot on children's language development. Ultimately, this can inspire new tools and practices for early pre-literacy and language education (as well as other domains such as STEM) in the home, classroom, and beyond.