Multimodal ecological technology: from child’s social behavior assessment to child-robot interaction improvement

The development of sensorimotor coordination ininfancy is fundamental for regulating interactional dynamicswith peers and adults. In this work we present a multimodaldevice to systematically assess children’s orienting behaviorin social situations. Technological choices are emphasizedwith respect to ecological requirements. Also ad-hoc calibration procedures are presented which are suitable to unstructured environments. Preliminary tests carried out at a local daycare with 12–36 months old typically developinginfants prove the in-field usability of the proposed technology. Considerations on the future development of the deviceunderscore the meaningful contribution that such platformcan offer to child-robot interaction research