Robotics for Children-New Directions in Child Education and Therapy-

Abstract

Robotics intersects with children in diverse ways; it opens new scientific research fields of understanding humans with collaborating with psychologies and other related fields. At the same time, it is expected to offer useful appli-cations for early childhood education and therapy. But, it has to be recognized that the robotics technology could be a double-edged sword, meaning that it could be hazardous if we did not exploit it in appropriate ways. Robots are thought to have double character; sometimes they show human-like features but other times they just look like an object. We need to understand the character well and consider appropriate forms of application based on the character. In this paper, firstly we will review the past studies around robotics and children, and we will also discuss the potential risk of robotics for children. Then, we will propose some new ideas for the application of robotics for early childhood education and therapy, considering the double character of robots.