“Let’s play catch together”: Full-body interaction to encourage collaboration among hearing-impaired children

Abstract

For hearing-impaired children, interaction with others is often suppressed due to their struggle to communicate vocally, which is the primary tool of communication for most children. This limits hearing-impaired children’s opportunities to develop social skills. We have developed a prototype system that supports hearing-impaired children’s acquisition of social skills. This system encourages collaborative play, using visual information and full-body interaction, with the aim of supporting the hearing-impaired child’s acquisition of social skills. We evaluated this system for empathy, negative feelings, and behavioral involvement. The result of this evaluation suggests that this system provides opportunities for collaboration, supporting the hearing-impaired child’s acquisition of social skills.